An Interlude to EJ McFall's 'Ring of Steel'
by marylinusca
Summary: Based on E.J. McFall's 'Ring of Steel' and is a tribute to that fine story. [Warning: High marysue content]
1. Chapter 1

While reading E.J. McFall's  "Ring of Steel" a thought occurred to me:  Where did Major Hochstetter get the penicillin?

The infamous disclaimer:  What is "Hogan's Heroes" belongs to Bing Crosby Productions, it's heirs and successors.  What is "Ring of Steel" belongs to E. J. McFall.  What's mine, is mine. 

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Doktor Marlena Falke dragged her bruised body to the ringing telephone.

"Hammelburg 9579. Heil…"

"Fraulein Doktor Falke? It's 'Emergency' at the Krankenhaus, Fraulein Doktor."  The woman cut in, her voice agitated. _'Emergency' sounding like that! Must be a disaster of the first magnitude._

"Ja? Was is los?" She heard her voice slur over the words. _The sedatives.  So sleepy_.  She must have overdosed herself, but the pain and the memory … _Don't think of what happened! Don't …_  "Calm yourself and speak clearly, bitte."  She said it as much to herself as to the emergency room clerk.

"Enshultigung, Fraulien Doktor.  Herr Doktor Kruger wants you to come immediately, Fraulein Doktor. First Priority.  From the Luftstalag.  We'll send a car if you cannot drive, but he says you must come at once, at least to observe."

"Ja, bitte." She roused herself.  "Please send it.  I'll be ready when it arrives."

She heard a few muttered words of command. Then, "It's on its way, Fraulein Doktor."

"Danke. Heil…" A timely yawn saved Doktor Falke from uttering that obligatory, hateful phrase.  She set the receiver down, softly moaning, leaned her elbows on the desk and rubbed her face.  The sharp pain brought her suddenly and fully awake.

_The Luftstalag._  She shivered, then looked down at her trembling hands and closed her eyes. _Get a grip on yourself!  It's a 'first priority' call, from the senior surgeon no less.  He would not have me called unless it was of the utmost importance.  He knows how I am.  He stitched me together._  Although she knew she would never feel whole again; but always torn in fragments. 

She slowly rose to her feet, slowly walked into the hallway, slowly pulled on her dark overcoat, stifling a moan as she eased the sleeves – first the left one, then the right – over her arms. She examined her face in the hallway mirror. _Red and purple and sore, bruised and cut and abraided. _She touched a sutured cut, then mustering her clinical detachment, appraised its fine stitches.  _Over seventy years old, and on a colleague yet.  Herr Doktor Kruger is amazing._ She fixed her mind on recalling the sureness, yet the delicacy of his touch.  Nurturing hands.  Skilled hands. Not like…

Forcing herself to use her pain and her painful memories to keep awake and focused, Doktor Falke concentrated on plaiting and winding her hair into a bun. Her hands trembled as she picked up the pins, but, slowly, painfully, she bit the prongs open and thrust them into the coil.  She looked into the mirror again. Did she see more grey than auburn? More scars than skin?

_'From the Luftstalag.' 'First priority.' Has Hochstetter's 'Ring of Steel' at last been broken? _She shuddered and forced out the sight of that hated man's leering, cruel face, his piggy, insane eyes, his ghastly stroking, stroking hands.

She took a deep breath. _ All over now.  It's all over now. He got your penicillin.  He got what he came for.  _But the eyes of a very frightened woman stared back from the mirror. She knew it was not 'all over'.

_'From the Luftstalag.' 'First priority.'_ She repeated the words aloud, drawing her dark gloves carefully over her red-ringed wrists. Her hands did not shake so much now. Yet what she would soon deal with must be indeed ghastly, since it shook an imperturbable emergency room clerk.

Unless a riot had erupted at Stalag Thirteen, it could not be the German soldiers.  Herr Doktor Kruger would not call her out to help treat them. They had no need of a civilian physician half comatose on morphine.

It could not be the Russian prisoners who had been brought into Stalag Thirteen with pneumonia just before Hochstetter enclosed it in his 'Ring of Steel'. Slavs and communists were not considered 'first priority'.  Neither were any of the 'coloured' POWs.  Indomitable non-Aryans were a threat to the Nazis' 'master race' ideology.  Russian soldiers were both indomitable and communist.  They were therefore tortured and neglected until they died.

Therefore it had to be either Fraulein Hilda or one of the 'white' prisoners among the Western Allies.

There was a knock at the door.

"Coming" Smoothing down her long, grey skirt and veiling her face with a thin, black scarf, Doktor Falke put her hand on the doorknob.  The she froze, trembling.  _What if this is a trap? What if I'll be taken to the Gestapo for interrogation, or worse? _"Who… Who is it?"

"The car to take you to the hospital, Fraulein Doktor."  Doktor Falke expelled her breath in a huge sigh.  She recognized the voice. _Herr Schultz.  Dear Sergeant Schultz from Stalag Thirteen. _She opened the door, nearly flinging herself upon the heavy set guard.

The large splotches of blood staining the front and arms of his uniform coat stopped her on the threshold.  That and Schultz's blanched face.

He avoided looking at her.   "It's Colonel Hogan, Fraulein Doktor.  The Gestapo … Major Hochstetter… ."  He could bearly speak. "Doktor Kruger sent me personally to fetch you. He said to come at once." 

Then he forced his eyes to meet hers.  "Doktor Kruger sent me because… He told me what had happened to you.  He thought you might be frightened. He…Please Fraulein Doktor. Do not cry."

Doktor Falke was hugging him. "I'm crying for joy, dear, dear mein Herr.  I shouldn't….  Colonel Hogan… We must go… But that Doktor Kruger … my superior …would understand…"

Schultz held her close, awkwardly patting her back.  "Ich verstehe… Ich verstehe… But we must hurry."

"Of course. But you do not know how strong I feel now, Herr Schultz."

Schultz gulped.  "I hope that you do feel strong, Fraulein Doktor. What was done to Colonel Hogan was terrible."

Doktor Falke took his hand, and let him escort her to the staff car. 'Who is guarding him, Herr Schultz?"

"The Kommandant is guarding him himself, Fraulein Doktor."

She forced the words past her lips.  "And the Gestapo?"

"General Burkhalter made Major Hochstetter leave the camp."

Doktor Falke stopped short at that hated name.  She shuddered as again the memory of him on her body swept over her.

Schultz sadly nodded. They knew it was a matter of days before the major would return to the attack.

She took in the bloody front of Schultz's uniform as he closed the door of the staffcar, then looked down at her hands.  Her gloves and coat were streaked with Colonel Hogan's blood.  She closed her eyes as she trembled. She saw his laughing face, his teasing eyes. _"I hope you'll never have my blood on your hands, Colonel Hogan." …  "I only want your neck between them, Doktor Pacifist."_

"Now your blood is on my hands, Herr Oberst, and your life is now in them.  Oh Dear God, I'm half drugged and too frightened to hold it."

Opening her eyes, Doktor Falke caught the glint of noon sunlight on the front door of her small cottage/surgery. From deep within another memory emerged: that of Sergeant Kinchloe standing at that same door, as dark as the night surrounding him, clutching Corporal LeBeau's ashen body against his chest, and Sergeant Carter beside him, whey faced, shakily pointing his pistol at her. She remembered how gently the black sergeant had laid his little friend on her examination table, how crusted with blood Herr Kinchloewen's black jersey had been.  She remembered the white sergeant's eagerness to assist her, his utter devotion to his friends. Nothing else had mattered to Andrew, not even his own fear of leaving his injured comrades behind and going alone to fetch his colonel. Nothing had mattered to him but ensuring that his friends LeBeau and Kinch lived and returned to their tunnel.

They had held Corporal LeBeau's life in their hands, the three of them, and he had survived the crude surgery she had performed on him.  Colonel Hogan has a far better surgeon in Herr Doktor Joachim Kruger, she reminded herself , and he will be in a fully appointed hospital.  He will survive his ordeal.  He must survive it, and she must see that he did.  So many people depend on him.

***

She stood across the operating table from Doktor Kruger, their bodies bent over the inert form of Colonel Robert Hogan.  She tried not to recognize him, to think of him as another anonymous victim of another sabotaged train or factory, but she could not.  She could barely look down at his bruised, cut face without crying.

Joachim Kruger glanced up.  His stern blue eyes above the white mask softened slightly as they met hers.

"I know this is hard for a woman, Doktor Falke. Try to bear it stoically."

"Jawohl, Herr Doktor Kruger. I have worked upon such wounds before."

"I know you have, Fraulein Doktor. Many times."

_"But not upon those that disfigure a man so handsome. One whom you know."_  Doktor Kruger allowed himself a second of admiration at his colleague's stamina.  He had operated upon her face and body less than two days ago, and that experience had left him sweat soaked and shaking.

Usually while operating, Doktor Kruger talked cheerfully of inconsequential matters: the weather, the roses in his garden, his grandson's achievements at the gymnasium.  He had performed so many types of operations so often that he literally could do them in his sleep.

He had not said a word when the motionless form beneath his scalpel had been Fraulein Doktor Falke.  He had done the best he could for her, his mouth pursed tight, holding back his rage at the near loss of a colleague.  Then he had sat at her bedside, holding her hand and waited for her closed eyes to flutter open. Waited for her to come to consciousness, and realize what had been done to her. He had never kept vigil over his other surgical patients, but he hated what had been done to her. Hochstetter had stolen her medications as well as her chastity.  Drugs that were to be used to heal the sick, not to be sold to the wealthy on the black market. The Gestapo agent had struck at all doctors through her.  Doktor Kruger thought in anger of Doktor Falke, alone, frightened, left helpless and in pain among the familiar things all doctors had in their offices. How long had she been lying there when Herr Schnitzer discovered her?  Watching her breathe, Doktor Kruger had wished that she could lie asleep, at peace, until she died.

She would go through the same ordeal with this American Colonel.  The same sadistic monster had torn him apart, as he had her.  They would never know a peaceful sleep again.

"Retractor, bitte."

He should not have called her back; but her work for the Red Cross obliged her to be here.  She was what passed for a medical officer at Stalag Thirteen and this man was the senior officer among the prisoners.  She would have encountered him more frequently than she would have encountered all the others.  Although she was trying her best to work unemotionally, naturally she would be upset.  The American was very handsome. Perhaps one day, if he survived, he would again look more than passably good looking.  But those broken ribs, and wrist, those head contusions…  His jaw is not fractured, nor are there any breaks around his eye-sockets, although … _I wonder what damage has been done to the man inside_.  

He glanced up again, and caught his colleague's lacklustre eyes_. I wonder what damage has been done to her.  She has been sedating herself with morphine.  She could addict herself to it and be of no use to us. Damn Hochstetter. A damn waste of a fine doctor._

Doktor Kruger tsked as he worked on.

Fraulein Doktor Falke glanced up, and clutched the table to keep from swaying.  Her eyes flickered around the room, to Doktor Kruger, Doktor Eckhart, the surgical nurses, the anaesthetist, then back down at the face of their patient.

She could almost hear his teasing, tormenting voice, _"I never kiss my butcher, Doktor Pacifist."…  As if I wanted him to kiss me. …  Act impassive.  Remember Colonel Hogan is an American prisoner. … We know how arrogant Americans are. "We always win every war we're in."… "Not the War of 1812, Colonel." … "Is that so?" he'd say. Then he'd chant in a sing-song voice, "We have eaten our roast pork, off silver plates at Muddy York. We have cured our English hams 'bove the mighty Falls at Beaver Dams." …  Always making me angry. … "Don't worry about blowing up Schultz's toy factory. I'll have my government rebuild it after the war." … Cocksure, cheeky devil. …"We will get you home and free, Doktor Falke.  Just keep faith. We will all go home free, and leave freedom and peace behind._

_And then we'll make a much freer country at home: Kinch and his people, Carter and his, and you and me and ours.  Two truly free countries, Doktor Pacifist – yours and mine."_

Doktor Falke slid her gloved hand along the table until the tip of her forefinger touched the tip of Colonel Hogan's pinkie. _Keep impassive, Fraulein Doktor.  Remember you are supposed to be a German. … In a place where the police rape women instead of protecting them. … In a place where they turn toy factories into armaments factories, force hundreds or thousands of 'foreign workers' to toil in those factories, like Herr Kinchloewen's ancestors were forced away from Africa to toil in the fields. … Where a man is beaten near to death on mere suspicion of being a spy._

_ "Just keep faith.  We will win, you and I. Fraulein Doktor Pacifist Falke and Colonel Warmonger Hogan.  We will win together."  _

_"Will we, Colonel Hogan?  Or will we just die trying?"_

"Fraulein Doktor?  Fraulein Doktor Falke!  Wake up and help me set this rib."

"Jawohl, Herr Doktor Kruger."  Marlena Falke forced herself to concentrate again on the task of keeping Colonel Robert Hogan alive.

**


	2. Chapter 2

In the recovery room, Marlena Falke sat beside the body of Colonel Robert Hogan.  She touched his cheek from time to time, or held his limp hand in hers.  _To check his vital signs.  To check his sutures still closed his wounds.  To act as a conscientious physician should. _  She kept rehearsing that line, over and over, in her coolest, calmest, most professional voice, to sound convincing if questioned.

Clinical detachment was the emotion to strive for. An emotionless emotion.  _"Save your energies to cure the disease, not to comfort the sufferer."_  She knew that a 'good' doctor must be clinically detached, a scientist rather than a healer, but a spark deep within her refused to treat her patients as human Petri dishes.  They were not receptacles for disease.  They were human souls.  She could not become like those of her colleagues who wrote in the medical journals about the superiority of the Aryan race, so she feared for herself.  She half suspected upon whom their experiments were being conducted, so she feared for Sergeant Kinchloe and the non Anglo Saxon prisoners of war in 'her' Stalag.  It was no secret that Jews and 'defectives' had been forcibly taken away for their 'protection'.  Who 'they' were who were being protected: the people interned, the Reich, the Aryan race, was left an open question.  Where they were taken to was a question no one dared ask, but there seemed to be an abundance of articles about Jewish skulls being too large or small, of the intelligence of Negroes being 'proven' subhuman to Aryans, of the organ of homosexuals being 'substandard'.

And there was propaganda about her pacifist co-religionists being 'non-German'.  As if that was possible. Mennonites had lived in the Palatinate for hundreds of years, almost since the Anabaptist movement began. They had to keep hidden or deny their beliefs or they would be thrown into 'punishment' camps.  So would she.  No Geneva Convention protected them.  None would protect her if she was found out, so she had to keep quiet. Mouselike.

There was the other reason her silence was vital.  She knew the secrets of men dear to her, who had given her the will to survive. She knew of their covert guerrilla operation beneath Stalag Luft XIII. 

She could not allow herself to be questioned.  She touched her masked face, taking strength in the one amazing fact that Major Hochstetter had not asked her the one question that would have made his wildest dream come true.  He had demanded she give up her body.  He had demanded she give up her antibiotics.  He had not thought to demand she tell him that Colonel Robert Hogan was a spy and saboteur.

He'll come again.  Did she have the will to resist him?  Could she blank her friends out of her mind when he attacked her again?  Should she run away?  No, she could not get away.  The Gestapo were everywhere.  Should she kill herself?  No, she would damn her soul.  She thought of Sergeants Kinchloe and Carter, of Corporals LeBeau and Newkirk. She thought of the other men at the Luftstalag.  They were her patients.  Could she kill herself to save them?  Would God forgive her suicide if she gave up her life for them?  It would not be a pure sacrifice, since she would be killing herself out of her own fear of torture.

She yawned. Now that the colonel's operation was over – the operation upon his body she thought with a smile, not the one in the tunnel – she was tired.  She knew if she closed her eyes, the nightmare memories would return.  But she must not inject herself with morphine.  Not here.  Not now.  Colonel Hogan needed her now.  Afterward. But if she took more morphine, she would become addicted to it.  Wasn't that committing suicide?

_What a time to go through a moral crisis! _

Recalling her duty as a doctor, she checked the colonel's skin.  The unbruised portions were white against her hand, and cold to the touch. She reminded herself that the ether would have depressed his vitals, and he had lost a lot of blood.  The surgeons had been careful. So had the anaesthetist.  So had she. Blood supplies were low, even plasma, due to the war and the bombings. They would not have spared any for a prisoner of war, but she had insisted, on behalf of the Red Cross and the Protecting Power in Geneva. That was why Doktor Kruger had wanted her in the operating room.  What little clout she had with the Red Cross, Herr Doktor Kruger wanted her to use. He would not turn a patient away, but he wanted all the authority he could muster on his side before operating upon a man that a Gestapo major suspected of espionage.

She held a small mirror above Colonel Hogan's bruised lips.  The mirror gradually fogged.  He still breathed. So did she, she discovered after heaving a sigh.  She smoothed a lank lock of raven hair from the colonel's forehead.  _Do not smile, even with your eyes, _she admonished herself_.  Look grim.  Act brisk.  People are no doubt watching us. _

It was hard to take an accurate pulse through linen surgical gloves.  She stripped the glove from her right hand and properly timed the pulse in his neck. As she did so, she caught sight of the red ring of abraded skin around her wrist.  Squeezing her eyes tight shut, she again thrust the memory of her ordeal at Hochstetter's hands behind her. She could not look at her examination table without a shudder, after she had been bound to it.

But Corporal LeBeau had lain upon it, she reminded herself.  God had performed a miracle then, that he lived through her attempts and those of his friends to close the wound in his chest. Remembering that would make the sight of it easier to bear next time.

_Skin cold, unnaturally pale.  Pulse slow.  Respirations slow. "Liebe Gott.  Please keep him alive.  I do not want to deliver a corpse to his good men." _ She gripped his fingers and released them.  Flipping up the blanket, she did the same to his toes.  She heaved a sigh of relief when they slowly flushed pink. Blood circulation to extremities had not shut down.  _"Come on, Colonel.  Stay with me." _ As she vigorously rubbed his legs, she checked the plasma draining from the intravenous bottle into his wrist. It was the last bottle she was allowed to give to him. _"Come on, Herr Oberst.  Make your Doktor Pacifist's thorn worth the sticking into your flesh.  Tell your spleen to make blood."_

It seemed to her that she had mentally coaxed each drop of that plasma through the tube and into his vein. She attached a bottle of saline in water and monitored his heart carefully for signs of shock. She had to keep his veins open and what blood he still had flowing freely.

It also seemed like hours of checking, chafing and praying had passed before his fingers twitched. _"That's it Colonel.  Revive. Come back to me."_  She again placed the oxygen cone over his mouth and nose. _"Come on," _she urged him._ "Come back to your sour spinster of a pacifist pain the butt."_

Colonel Hogan stirred on his gurney.  Doktor Falke adjusted her mask and tugged down her surgical cap.  She drew her glove over her right hand. Reassured that they covered the scars and bruises, she bent over him and took his hand in hers.

"Colonel Hogan …"  She shut her eyes and steadied her voice. _ Remember Marlena.  You are a German physician, in a German hospital, and he is an American prisoner of war. You've aroused suspicion already, sitting vigil over him._

She wished that she had allowed Sergeant Schultz to be with him in the recovery room.  She would need his strength to hold him to the gurney if he raved. But the operation must be kept secret.  Who knows what Colonel Hogan might disclose in his postoperative delirium?

She had shooed the nurses away in her most severe, spinster guardian of morals, 'Fraulein Doktor' manner.  "I will not have you heaving sighs over an enemy of the Third Reich, no matter how handsome, how heart-meltingly vulnerable, he appears.  He is my responsibility, according to the Red Cross.  I alone will see to his care."   She had kept Klink and Schultz away by reminding them that she was a physician and they were not. She did not need them hovering over Colonel Hogan and getting in her way.  She certainly did not need them contaminating the recovery room by puking all over it.  _"Colonel Hogan has never molested me in over two years acquaintance, when he was strong and uninjured, and he is unable to do so now," _she had told the Herr Oberst Klink   Nor, since he was unconscious, was he able to escape.  Sergeant Schultz could stand guard outside the room if the Herr Kommandant was anxious, but there was no need and she preferred he did not.  She was fully capable of dealing with a post-operative patient.

She had braced herself to argue with the Herr Doktors Kruger and Eckert, although she had no valid argument to offer them.  They were the attending surgeons, and had the right to examine their patient whenever they chose.  But, strangely, Doktor Kruger saw no impropriety in her watching over Colonel Hogan.

_Perhaps it is because I am so obviously unwell.  He wants me kept out of harm's way in a safe place, where I can be guarded and will not disturb the routine of the hospital and where the staff will not disturb me.  _She looked down at the restless man.  _Or perhaps he thinks I am in love with Colonel Hogan.  I must have looked quite stricken when I saw him on the table._

Colonel Hogan began to moan and mutter incoherently.  She bent low to hush him.

"Herr Oberst.  It is Doktor Falke.  You are in the Krankenhaus."  She squeezed his hand, willing him to listen and understand.  He must realize he was not yet safe in his tunnel.  "You in the Krankenhaus, Colonel Hogan.  You must lie still.  You have had an operation and are still heavily sedated.  You had an operation on you ribs, and arm and head; but I was there.  Nothing bad was done to you.  Please, Colonel.  Lie still."

The colonel seemed to understand.  He quieted and his dark eyes, unfocused, blinked at her.  "Kinch… 'cillin."  Her heart jerked violently, as if a jolt of electricity had shot up her arm from their clasped hands. His eyes were bright and frantic, begging her.  "'Monia. … Kinch … Save …"

She forced her voice steady.  "Sergeant Kinchloe has pneumonia?"  but Hogan's eyes had closed and his land now lay limp in hers.

"Penicillin."  She had no penicillin to give him. Major Hochstetter – the Gestapo – had taken all she had on that horrible day they burst into her examination room.

Maybe she could requisition more from the Red Cross, but by then it might be too late.  Herr Kinchloewen needed it urgently if he had pneumonia.  So did Colonel Hogan now.  She looked around the recovery room.  There wasn't much here to steal. The constant bombings had injured thousands of people and destroyed the sanitation facilities in many cities.  Antibiotics were in very short supply throughout Germany, hoarded like gold.  She would steal it if she had to.  If she was prudent, she could stretch the dosage each man needed.  She had to save them both. Colonel Hogan depended on Sergeant Kinchloe.  He was the operation's radioman, their link with London, and he was the tunnel's guardian and manager.  He "minded the store".

Nothing came before the operation. That was the first article in the creed. Colonel Hogan insisted upon it.  "And the colonel **_is_** the operation," Herr Kinchloewen always said.  "He makes it run.  Nothing comes before keeping him alive."

_But Herr Kinchloewen was ill with pneumonia, and Colonel Hogan wants me to save him._

She shook herself mentally. Maybe she was leaping to a wrong conclusion.  Maybe Colonel Hogan meant she should give the penicillin to Herr Kinchloewen for the sick Russians.  But why would Colonel Hogan, a 'true blue' American, and a proud believer in 'free enterprise', worry about the plight of Russian communists?  She studied Colonel Hogan's lax face, as if she was seeing him for the first time.  Had she misjudged him since she had met him?  Had her hatred of war and those who made war their business made her jump to false conclusions about him?

No.  Colonel Robert E. Hogan was a warmonger, a womanizer, and a manipulator of far better men than himself.  If the war did not end soon, his reckless bravado would kill them.  _Smug, arrogant foolish man._

Then, from within her heart, she heard his voice again. _"We will get you home, Doktor Falke.  Trust me.  We will get you home and free."_

She wiped her eyes, disgusted at her outburst of tears.  _He gave me his promise, and I believed him.  I am as gullible as his men. _  She gazed down on his unconscious face.  _"What are your promises worth now, Colonel?"_

She nearly said the caustic words aloud, but something inside her denied that her anger was just.  Colonel Hogan had truly believed he could get her home and have her Canadian citizenship restored to her.  How an American colonel could so, she did not know, but she had seen what he had done and clung to the hope that he could produce a miracle or two for her.  Sometimes he had held the promise over her to make her do things she would baulk at, but he had never demanded that she take a life – except perhaps that of the child in Helga's womb, and even then he did not press her.  He had taken her refusal as final and had not held it against her.  He had never carried through his threat to go back on his word to her, no matter how much they irritated one another.  Except for the times when it was unsafe for her or for them, he had not prohibited his men from visiting her.  He knew those visits gave her the heart to keep faith.  Besides, she thought with a knowing smile, they kept her loyal to him.  After all, could he trust a woman who called him 'an arrogant, empire building, American warmonger'?

_"But what about mein Herr and the penicillin?"_ she pondered, troubled.  She glanced at Colonel Hogan's still face, then at the outer door.  She moved to the door, looked back at the man on the gurney.  Straightening and inhaling a deep breath, she turned the knob.  "Herr Schultz.  Komm hier, bitte."

Sergeant Schultz lumbered in.  His eyes went first to the still form on the gurney, then around the room, then to the gurney again.  He heard the door click shut behind him and turned to Doktor Falke in trepidation.  "Colonel Hogan …?"

"Beginning to wake.  I will tell you and the Herr Kommandant his condition, if Herr Doktor Kruger has not already done so."  She pulled the big guard to the far side of the room.

Schultz swallowed.  "He is … He will …?"

"It is too early, but he moved, and his pulse and respirations are stable.  I think he will recover."

"In body," Schultz murmured.

Doktor Falke held back a sigh.  "In mind too, I hope."  She attempted a bright smile, and then realized Sergeant Schultz could not see it through her mask.

"He has a strong, defiant spirit, Herr Schultz.  We both know that all too well."

Schultz managed a smile.  "Ja.  His monkey business.  So full of what he calls 'practical jokes'."  He sobered.  "I think he played one joke too many upon Maj…the Gestapo." He shot Doktor Falke a look of embarrassment.

Her face went sombre. "Herr Schultz.  He spoke Sergeant Kinchloe's name and mentioned 'pneumonia' and 'penicillin'.  Why?" 

Schultz shuffled his feet and looked down at them.

"Why, Herr Schultz?"  She grew alarmed.  "Answer me!  What happened at the Luftstalag? Why was Colonel Hogan brought here injured?"

Schultz looked up.  "Sergeant Kinchloe carried the Russian sick into their barracks when they arrived.  He caught the pneumonia from them. We had no medicines to cure them.  You know that.  You were to bring us some from the Red Cross, but the Gestapo enclosed the camp.  Sergeant Kinchloe became very sick and weak.  Many of the Russians he had carried and had cared for died.  Colonel Hogan was afraid he too would die and so became frantic to obtain penicillin.  The Kommandant put him in the cooler when he physically attacked Major Hochstetter. Then the little cockroach LeBeau told him that Carter was ill.  Major Hochstetter offered him penicillin for information, to trap him into admitting he was a spy.

Marlena felt her breath stop.  "And the colonel accepted the offer?"

"He told lies to the major, and when they were found out to be lies…" Schultz closed his eyes, shuddering.  "It was terrible, Fraulein Doktor.  Do not make me describe what I heard."  He gestured to the colonel's immobile body.

Marlena's eyes moved with his.  "Did he get the penicillin?" she whispered.

Schultz nodded.  "Ja.  He did."

She swallowed the lump in her throat. "How much was he given?"

Schultz told her.  It was exactly the amount stolen from her.

"And Sergeant Kinchloe?  Sergeant Carter?"

"Recovering.  Sergeant Kinchloe is greatly weakened, but he does not cough so hard, nor so long."

_"Dank sei Gott!" _ Then she reminded herself her full duty was to **_all_** the men in Stalag Luft XIII.  "The Russian prisoners of war?  How are they?"

"Half are dead."  Schultz admitted sadly.  He brightened.  "But half are alive.  Colonel Hogan gave them penicillin also."

"He gave the Russian communists penicillin?"  She asked, incredulous.

"Ja.  Colonel Hogan is compassionate.  I have always known that."

_I've never thought of him as that.  A man who blows up factories and bridges and trains.  A man who gives me more casualties than I can cope with – a compassionate man? A man capable of showing mercy to a foe?_

A low moan from the bed disturbed her reverie.  Her eyes and thoughts flew to Colonel Hogan, then to Sergeant Schultz. _The tunnel!  I have to get him out of here! _

She steadied her breathing, forced herself to act composed. "Herr Schultz, bitte inform the Herr Kommandant Klink that Colonel Hogan is coming to consciousness and will soon be discharged into his care."

Schultz looked at Colonel Hogan, watched him stir, and then turned to the physician.  "Jawohl, Fraulein Doktor.  Do you want him summoned?"

"In an hour, Oberfeldwebel.  We have to prepare the colonel for the journey back to Stalag XIII.  He will be in great pain, but he is still weak with loss of blood.  I cannot administer a sedative or pain reliever to him so soon after his operation without disturbing the stability of his vital signs.  If the Kommandant could obtain brandy…" 

Schultz nodded and nervously wet his lips.  "Jawohl.  Do not worry, Fraulein Doktor."

Doktor Falke gave him a hasty 'Danke' and sent him away with a little push.  She turned to her patient, dismissing Schultz from her mind.  She knew that he knew his safety lay in 'knowing nothing'.  From the look he had just given her, he seemed to know that all their lives depended on it too, and that he would comply.

"Colonel Hogan…_Please, dear God, make him just aware enough to heed my words and not notice my face! _… Colonel Hogan.  It is Doktor Falke.  Do you recognize my voice?"

"Mar..lena.  Dok…tor  Pa- …" He blinked his eyes open, realized where he was and why uttering his usual nickname for her was too dangerous.  "Doktor Pain in … the Butt."  He managed the tiny beginning of a smile before the pain made him moan.  "Know…your blue eyes…anywhere."

The mask hid the answering smile on lips but not in her eyes.  "Colonel, the Herr Kommandant Klink and Oberfeldwebel Schultz brought you here, to the Krankenhaus.  Remember?"

"Re…member you … told …me."  His eyes searched hers anxiously.  "Did…talk?"

"Not during the operation.  You were anaesthetized.  You are still heavily sedated.  And not here in the recovery room.  I was with you."

"Be..fore?"

Marlena paused.  "I do not know."

His eyes searched hers.  "You…alright?"

Marlena swallowed, blinked, and then lied, "Yes.  I'm fine."

Hogan did not look convinced.  "Why … mask?"

"Sergeant Schultz told me there was pneumonia in the camp.  You might be contagious."

"Cautious.  Like Kinch."  He frowned, troubled. "Schultz told you … about Kinch?"

"Ja.  He said the sergeant was growing stronger though."  _Was Sergeant Schultz lying? _"Colonel Hogan, you seem aware of your surroundings and condition.  Are you?  Where are we?"

Hogan smiled.  "Hospital.  … Aware …of pain … too. … Get me … to Kinch. … soon. …Be fine then."

Doktor Falke glanced at the large clock.  "Another half hour, Colonel.  The Kommandant will come and take you back to the camp.  Let me examine you first."

"Still … have my pants on." He touched the blanket over his chest.  "My shirt…?"

"You were not wearing one when you arrived, Herr Oberst.  The Kommandant has your shoes and socks."

"Wanted … die with … boots on. … Soldier's way."

Marlena Falke felt tears sting her eyes as she took the pulse in his neck.  "You will have another opportunity soon.  Just make sure you're the only one who does."

"Fraulein … Doktor … Thorn …" He winked.  "Promise. … Can't … guarantee."

"In wartime, one learns to be grateful for whatever is offered, Colonel."  She checked him over.  Pulse.  Respiration.  Heartrate.  Blood Pressure. The colonel endured it until she put a tongue depressor in his mouth and told him to say 'Ahh', 

He swatted her hand away. "You …make a saint swear."  The flat stick dropped to the floor. He saw her suddenly wince and grasp her wrist, unable to bite back a moan. "Marlena?"  His eyes widened as he saw the tearstains on her mask. "Marlena?"

_Gowned and gloved from top to toe. _ He was about to tell her that she did not have to hide her wounds from him, that Hochstetter had flung into his face every disgusting detail – but it cost his all to deal stoically with the ever increasing pain.

"I'm fine, Colonel."

_"I don't buy that, Marlena. Not one bit."_

She did not want him to know.  She thought she was 'sparing' him.  _She finds comfort for herself in that.  Let her have that comfort until we're both stronger.  Then I'll tell her she does not have to feel ashamed to show her scars to me.  When she sees Kinch and Carter alive and well, she'll feel better.  She loves those two more than she loves herself.  They will tell her she still is lovely to them, and she will believe them._

_Kinch and Carter – alive and well. That sight will satisfy us both. _Hogan recalled standing beside Klink in the winter dawn, silently watching Hochstetter's thugs drag out the dead bodies of the Russians and throw them in the fire as if they were burning garbage.  He swore he would not let that fate happen to Kinch.  When Carter – his trusting, trustworthy klutz – also took sick, he had to do something drastic to save them. He knew he was risking the operation, but when it came to the crunch, he had to risk it.  The operation, his life, was not more important than their lives.  So he accepted the offer to trade secrets for the penicillin.  

But the knowledge that Hochstetter raped Marlena Falke to get of that penicillin – harmed a harmless woman too weak and frightened to resist – burned inside him.  Hochstetter could have taken it from her without ripping apart her body and her soul.  He felt his wrath rise, stronger than his pain.  For his men, for Marlena, for the slain and tortured, for himself, he would be the avenging angel. Whatever it took, he would kill Major Wolfgang Hochstetter.


	3. Chapter 3

  
**From Ring of Steel by E. J. McFall:  **

**"I'll stay. You get some sleep too." **

**" And let you spend the whole bloody night hacking all over the man? Are you crazy, mate? The governor can hardly breathe now what with his ribs all broken. He doesn't need pneumonia too." **

**"I…" Kinch's rebuttal was interrupted by a fit of coughing. He knew Newkirk was right, but that didn't make it any easier to surrender his post and find an isolated bunk in the other room. But if he was going to trust anyone with Hogan tonight, the Englander would be his first choice. ...**

***

**_continuing marylinusca's version:  _**

Newkirk watched Kinch narrowly as, smothering his coughs, the sergeant turned with a considering frown to Hogan and then back to him.

_Look at the man. He's barely holding himself together. Why does he think he has to be bloody Atlas carrying the world on his back? What does he think we'll do if he collapses?_

Kinch reluctantly nodded and sighed.  "You're right.  With his ribs and my pneumonia, I'd do him more harm than good."  His dark eyes bored into Newkirk's. "Take good care of him. Call me the moment he wakes up..."

Newkirk cut in, disgusted. "Do you think I've no brains of my own? I can tie my shoes and cut up my food, y'know. Can't be that hard to watch over one unconscious man for one night."

Kinch shot him a glare, then he gestured surrender. "Yeah. Sorry. Of course, you're more than able to take care of the colonel."

Newkirk shrugged, outwardly indifferent but inwardly astonished.  He had never won so complete a victory over Kinch so easily.

"That's all right," he mumbled. "You had to deal with what the bastard did to him." He looked a little shamefaced. "Sorry I got huffed. It couldn't have been pleasant for you."

Kinch managed a small, rueful smile. "No, it wasn't. The colonel busted me to private and threatened me with a court-martial for pulling off his pants."

Newkirk could not help his grin. "Well then.  He hasn't lost his sunny disposition.  That shows he'll be better in no time."

"Yeah."  Kinch turned back to the colonel. He moved sluggishly toward the bed, leaned against the post, and gazed down at him. Then he turned back to the Englishman.  Again, Newkirk felt a shock.  Kinch looked hollow-eyed, utterly spent - and afraid. "Newkirk, I …I daren't leave him."

The corporal approached him and touched his arm. "You're not God, Kinch," he said, very gently. "You've done all you could do. Take care of yourself now." He gave the arm a tiny, self-conscious squeeze, and a little push. "He'll be here for you tomorrow.  Get a good, long sleep."

Kinch nodded again, wearily. His eyes silently repeated his plea, "Take good care of him."  He bent down, picked up the colonel's blooded slacks, and draped them over his left arm. Then he shepherded LeBeau and Carter from the room.

Newkirk remained standing, determined not to relax until Kinch had left him alone with their colonel.  He felt a little guilty at forcing his colleague to back down. Perturbed too.  He shook himself irritably; but the feelings remained. It was not like Kinch, nor like LeBeau, to leave the colonel in the care of others.  The guv'nor often complained that they were too protective of him.

As soon as the door clicked shut, the Briton dropped his self-confident pose and sank down on the stool beside the colonel's head.  He leaned forward, nervously rubbed his hands together and stared at them.  He stared at his fingernails, his knuckles, his palms, and then the backs of his hands.  The he stared at his shoes, the pens and pencils neatly arranged on the wooden desk, the leather jacket carefully hung on its hook in the locker, the leather cap with its eagle and shield badge hung on its hook on the half open locker door.

He looked everywhere in the room except at Colonel Hogan's body.  Every time he tried, his eyes veered away. He angrily shook himself again. He was not afraid to look Gestapo goons in the eyes. Why couldn't he look at his leader's face?

Because he was afraid of what he'd see. Because he was no good in here. Sick people had always given him the willies. Even Carter, with his Boy Scout training and his pharmacology, was better capable to care for the colonel than he.

LeBeau had proven he was the best of nurses, as if it needed proving.  No one had devoted as much time as he did to caring for Kinch, Carter, the Russians and the other sick men. For a man squeamish at the sight of blood, he was indomitable. None who survived would have survived without LeBeau, since Doktor Falke had been unable to get through Hochstetter's 'ring of steel' and see to things herself. She would probably say they did better with him than with her.

He should have let Louis sit up with the colonel.

Newkirk nerved himself to move his eyes along the blanket-covered body, starting from the foot of the bunk. It was not so hard, he told himself.  With his wounds hidden by the rough cloth, the guv'nor looked quite normal. As if he was merely asleep. Until one looked at his face, that is.  Newkirk swallowed, and forced his eyes those last few inches. It was too much.  He suddenly turned his head away, but his apprehensive thoughts snagged and tore on the sutures. 

Was Colonel Hogan 'quite normal'?

LeBeau, who believed so passionately in his colonél that he preferred to fight for France at his side than at De Gaulle's, did not believe he had survived Hochstetter's brutality unscathed. Every horror story of Gestapo brutality stared out of LeBeau's dark intense eyes as they looked upon Hogan's lacerated face.

Kinch did not believe. Kinch had looked straight into Carter's eyes while he spoke bracingly, with conviction, that, although Colonel Hogan was in great pain and his convalescence would be lengthy, no Kraut could conquer him. Carter's first article of faith was 'Colonel Hogan can do, or survive, anything'. Carter had to believe that to keep functioning. But Kinch's gaze had slid away when their own eyes met; and he flinched when LeBeau accused him of not telling their innocent the full truth. 

Newkirk knew then their operation's days were numbered.  Kinch was a trained pugilist, and being a studious sort of bloke, he would have made a thorough study of how much pain a man could bear. If Kinch didn't believe the guv'nor would fully recover, how could they?

What were they going to do if the colonel was broken?  What were they going to do if he survives but he's not himself? Could they maintain the operation without him? What if he insisted on remaining in control?

Some of the colonel's plans – most of his plans – had been the balmiest schemes ever thought up, and yet they were the most brilliant. _If we were not such a marvellous crew, they would have never worked, but that was the guv'nor.  Amazing how he could get us – even me – to believe in him and do everything he wanted done._

But what if it was over for him? Newkirk shook off the thought as treasonous; but it returned to his mind.  What were they going to do if he was not himself?  Send him to London in a strait jacket?  Pretend to follow orders, but work around him?

Who would take over? Some officer from London?  _Do we follow orders from the underground?  If the colonel's gone completely… if he…_ Newkirk forced his mind forward.  _If he dies, Klink'll transfer in a new officer and we'll have to go by his rules.  _

_What would the new man be like?  Would he listen to us?  After all, we've got experience here and he hasn't.  Took us a long time to learn, too._

The last man had been just, but very by the book, up to the moment he died.  As the camp troublemaker, Newkirk had never gotten along with him. He had never got along with anyone in authority until Colonel Hogan came. When Hogan had set up his command, he had given him the job of security officer, on the assumption that a con artist would not let anyone con him and a pessimist would be suspicious of everyone and everything. Now that he knew how hard it was to maintain order, Newkirk regretted he had been a plague to his old senior officer.  He didn't like regret. It left an acid taste in his mouth. But he regretted.

Nerving himself, Newkirk looked at Hogan's still face with a worried frown.  _"We've got to get you well in a hurry, guv.  We've grown too used to your style of command."_

He had offered to help undress the colonel and make him comfortable, but Kinch had ordered him out.  Newkirk scowled. Took too much on himself, did Kinch. As if no one but he was fit to touch the guv'nor. He wanted to argue him down but no one dared argue Kinch down when he took a hard line. Better to obey the man than risk a blow to the jaw. Kinch seldom hit, but he could hit very hard. Newkirk did not want to try the man at the edge of his self-control.

Kinch had told him to organize a noisy gambling game.  Newkirk saw the purpose of it right off.  The noise would cover up Hogan's moans from the other men.  So he obeyed, but his heart wasn't in his patter.  It was in that little room, where the rest of him wanted to be.

Newkirk admitted that he wanted to string up every German he saw, not ease the colonel's pain. Still, he wanted to be by his colonel's bedside, even if it was as a helpless bystander wringing his hands (_around Hochstetter's neck_, he muttered fiercely) not in the common room making light-hearted banter.

But he was just a lowly corporal carrying out Black Kinchloe's orders.  Stubborn sod, Kinch; but, then, he always was.

The other men in Barracks Two had almost immediately given up the pretence of enjoying their impromptu 'Monte Carlo Night'.   They had gone through the motions of gambling away their money, but Newkirk had seen their covert glances at the colonel's closed door. Games of chance had been far from their minds.  They had laughed and shouted in a semi-subdued way, obeying Kinch's order to make noise, but their faces were straining to hear the colonel's moans.

The glowering Corporal Marcus Simms had not even tried to pretend.  The wiry black airman stood a silent sentry at the colonel's door, keeping everyone – particularly Carter – from venturing near it.  Once he gave Newkirk a grim nod, as if to say he shared his feelings and approved his efforts.  Newkirk grimaced, yet felt oddly comforted that someone, even Black Kinchloe's staunchest supporter, had spared some sympathy for him.

Carter had not pretended all was well.  The young man had huddled on his bunk, eyes averted from Simms and the gamblers, and tried in vain to conjure up one good memory from his knotted string.  _Poor Andrew_, Newkirk sighed.  _Remembering just made him more miserable._

Now here he was, Peter Newkirk, alone with his colonel like he wanted to be.  He forced himself to look down at Hogan's still face.  He had never felt more helpless in his life.  Not even when he had fallen into the trap set for Papa Bear by the Gestapo who posed as the underground unit North Star.  Then it had been only his neck in the noose.  He knew that Colonel Hogan would save him, after he got the message without the four score and seven codes.  Even if the colonel could not rescue him, at least he would have died knowing that he had warned him 'North Star' was a fraud. The creeps would never capture Papa Bear, and that's all that had mattered.

But Papa Bear was wounded now, and Hochstetter's trap had nearly caught him.

Newkirk gritted his teeth.  If Kinch could look upon the colonel's wounds, so could he.  He was as tough a man as 'Black Kinchloe'. He grasped the edge of the blanket, and then abruptly let it go.

Newkirk squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath.  He could do this.  He had to.  Admit that he was less a man than Kinch?  Admit he could not hold his nerve?  Not bloody likely.

Clutching it tightly in both hands, Newkirk raised the rough cloth, opened his eyes and forced himself not to look away or to gag when the image focused.

How could Kinch have cleansed those wounds?  How could he have even looked at them without retching?

He noticed a long stitched cut on the colonel's cheekbone.  _Our Doktor Falke's work.  A trifle ragged, but I'd know her stitches on anyone.  I've seen them often enough on guys she's sewn up for us._ After what he had overheard that Hochstetter had done to her, he could not blame her for their unevenness. 

Marlena had said he would get well, if he was well cared for. They would ensure he was well cared for.  But she could not assess the state of the guv'nor's mind.  Just that of his body.  He might have been aware enough when she was with him but what about when she wasn't?

But if Hogan did say something in the staff car, Klink had not let on and Schultz had not let on. Those two were as sneaky as a pair of newborn babies. The guv'nor could not have babbled.

Newkirk lowered the blanket, covering Hogan's bandaged torso and casted arm.

He frowned at the memory of Hogan's return from the hospital. The colonel had sagged, first against Schultz when the guard assisted him from the car, and then against Kinch.  Kinch's grim mouth and eyes had shown Newkirk that he too was alarmed. This was not the Colonel Hogan they knew: the man with the confident bearing, the bright, merry eyes, and the cocksure grin.  Newkirk sensed it had taken all the radioman's self control to keep from scooping him up in his arms and carrying him through the mob of POWs.  That would never have done.  Morale would have 'gone for a Burton' beneath the tunnel floor.  Rumours always flashed about the camp, magnifying as rapidly as they spread.  If the colonel had stubbed his toe, the word would have been about in minutes that he was paralysed. 

This was worse than a stubbed toe. What would the men make of what they had seen? What would they tell others?

And what if they were right? Newkirk wondered with dread.  What if the colonel was too helpless to lead them?

Newkirk felt the green imp's pitchfork stab him, recalling how Hogan had leaned so heavily upon Kinch; as if the man was the only support he had in the world, the only man worth trusting. Newkirk knew that Kinch was the man to whom Colonel Hogan entrusted the operation if he was captured or killed.

He had felt jealous of Kinch from the start.  Black Kinchloe was a good man, but why did the colonel always turn to him?  Why not to Corporal Peter Newkirk?  He was the most like Hogan: brash, suave, devilish with women, unscrupulous, a gambler, a flim-flam artist extraordinaire. Why didn't the colonel trust him like he trusted Kinch? 

Sergeant James Ivan Kinchloe was not even the ranking NCO, yet Carter, LeBeau, and almost all the other men obeyed him without more than the token grumbling always given to an officer's orders.  Carter was his superior by a grade, yet Carter obeyed him wholeheartedly.  If anyone asked why, he'd shrug and say, "Kinch always knows the score." 

Newkirk had to admit with a half scornful smile that Kinch was a trustworthy man.  His impulse to work for others and for the greater good (_the only impulse Kinch ever allowed himself_, he cynically groused) made him a man one could count on, particularly in a crisis, to do the right, best, thing, even if his idea of the 'right, best, thing' wasn't your idea. He was sensible.  Clear-sighted.  A good judge of a man or a plan.  A hard worker – too hard for Newkirk's liking.  He demanded as much of others as he gave himself.  He was surly at times; but who wasn't?  Doktor Falke had good reason to nickname him "Herr Kinchloewen." He seldom roared but he was indeed a lion – a large, powerful, cat, ever alert behind his even-tempered façade.

Newkirk admitted that, for all the bitterness he must feel at the limitations his country put on men of colour, for all he knew about the shadow sides of the streets and the injustice of authority, for all he may have done that was not strictly honest, Kinch was a good and trust-worthy man. Down deep, Newkirk admitted he respected that. That's why the colonel looked first to him, touched his arm or rested his hand on his shoulder, why he shared his smile, believed in him. No man he relied on more than on Kinch, and Kinch had repaid that trust with interest.

Newkirk wondered what Kinch got out of it – what his game really was.  No man could be so unselfish. He must be expecting some reward. Oh well. As long as he, Newkirk, did not lose, he hoped Kinch would win whatever he was playing for.

***

Newkirk looked up as the door clicked open and a small figure slipped through.  "What do you think you're doin' here?"

Corporal LeBeau put a finger to his lips.  "Shh! Do you wish to wake mon colonél?"  His face turned sad as he regarded the unconscious man lying on the bed.  The small Frenchman's lips silently moved.  In prayer, Newkirk thought with an inward sneer, or is he counting the bruises?

He felt suddenly contrite, and he didn't like the feeling. "Kinch will wake him for us if he finds you here," he grumbled.

LeBeau shrugged. "Kinch is out like a lamp."

"You mean, 'out like a light', you bloody frog, and that's just how he'll put me if I let you stay here."  Newkirk flung out his arms, exasperated. "Don't you get it?  If we're all awake now, none of us will be awake to take care of Colonel Hogan when he wakes up. Go back to bed."

LeBeau thrust out his chin. "Non. I cannot sleep because mon colonél is hurting, and I would rather sit awake beside mon colonél than lie awake in my bed. Besides, Kinch moved back to his bunk beneath me, and his raspy breathing keeps me from sleep.

Newkirk spared a chuckle:  Can't protect the colonel, so he protects the tunnel.  He shrugged and tried so sound uninterested.  "Fine.  Suit yourself, but you'll tell him it's not my fault you're here."

He leaned back against the upright of the colonel's bunk.  "Get a stool from the other room.  This one's taken."

LeBeau did not seem to hear him.  He was staring down at Colonel Hogan's bruised, cut face, his mouth working, his tears running down his cheeks.  

"Pierre," he whispered.  "Do you think that pig has finally broken le colonél?"

Heaving a heavy sigh, the English corporal rose, put his arm across his companion's shoulders, and sat him upon the vacated stool.  "Now, Louis.  You know he's made of sterner stuff than we are.  He did not break.  I know.  I was there in the tunnel right beneath, and I could hear everything."

"You were not in the tunnel all the time," LeBeau argued.

"No, but I was there for most of it."  Newkirk tried to sound heartening.  "He traded quips with old Wolfgang like one of those Yanks in the movies."  He curled his lips and gave his Bogart impression. "Dere's nuffin' you kin say dat'll make me talk, Wulfie, but if ya wanna waste yer time tryin', go right ahead." 

Then back to his own voice. "You wouldn't know from hearing him that he was gettin' hurt."

_"And if you believe that, mate, you're either a bigger mug than Carter or I'm the greatest mesmerist alive."  _

Newkirk saw from LeBeau's anxious, grieving face that did not believe it, but the tiny smile and the whispered, "Oui.  Merci." was worth the lie.  He pulled out his pack of cards.  "Might as well have a game of gin while you're here.  You deal.  I'll get another stool."

Glancing down at his colonel's unconscious face, Newkirk's fists involuntarily clenched as all he had heard while hidden in the tunnel beneath the punishment cell came back to him. He hastily left the room.  He did not want the emotional LeBeau to see how wretched he felt and ask awkward questions. He wanted to pommel Hochstetter's mug until it gushed blood like a fountain from nose, mouth, ears, eyes, anyplace that let it out.

He leaned against Simms' bunkpost to calm his rapid breathing, then moved to the mess table.  As he bent to pick up his stool, he saw Kinch, lying asleep on his bunk. He straightened, walked over and gingerly sat on the edge, gazing down at him.  _"Was it only yesterday that we crowded around you while you said those Scripture verses and gave those Reds a decent send off?  Was it only yesterday that I worried I'd next hear them said over you?"_

He thought over Kinch's eulogy for the dead Russians whose bodies had been cremated the previous day:  _"We didn't agree on many things, but that doesn't matter now.  We were allies against tyrants. We were brothers in a common struggle. They opposed men who treated them like animals. They fought valiantly for their country, their homes, for the people they loved, as we have done.  We honour their unconquered spirits."_

For a few seconds, a gentler Peter Newkirk looked through the cynic's eyes.   _'Brothers in a common struggle.'_   He again heard the undercurrent of passion in Kinch's raspy, muted voice, caught himself saying 'Amen'.

He adjusted the blanket over the sleeping man.  _"I didn't tell you everything I heard, chum.  How are you going to react when you see what the bastard did to your 'Doktor Fledermaus'?"_  His eyes flicked to the colonel's door, and then back to Kinch.  _"She'll come here to check up on him, sure as rain, and on you and Carter as well. What are we going to do then?"_

He heard a rustle from the bunk next to him.  "Newkirk?  What are you doing out here?"  Carter flung back his blanket and put his legs out of his bunk.  "Something really wrong with the colonel?"

Newkirk hastily put a finger to his lips. "Not so loud, you twit!  D'ya want Kinch on our backs?  Nothing's wrong."

Undeterred, Carter rose and stood over him. "Then why are you here?"

 "I just wanted a breath of air, that's all," he replied with heavy sarcasm. "Go back to sleep."

"I wasn't sleeping.  I was just pretending to." Carter fumbled beneath his bunk for his shoes, slipped them on, then stumbled back to his friend.  He looked down, first at Kinch, and then at Newkirk.  "He's really out, isn't he?"

"You'd be too, you loon, if you had to undress and quiet down the guv'nor, and deal with your coughing and fever at the same time."  _And your own fear since they took the colonel about what they were doing to him and what they might force him to say.   And worrying about what to do with a thousand trapped men if he does crack and the goons come. And keeping yourself and your mates from tearing out Hochstetter's guts.  And keeping up a brave, calm front when you're scared, because you know too damn well everyone's looking to you."_

Newkirk touched the blanket over the sergeant's chest. _"I couldn't do it, nor would I have tried. You've always been the responsible one.  I've never felt responsible to anyone but myself."_  His eyes moved from Kinch's closed eyes, up to Carter's anxious face, and across to the closed door of Colonel Hogan's quarters. _Not until now._

"He's exhausted."  Newkirk looked back at Carter. "He'll be cross, and so will Papa Bear, if they wake up and find you've not been sleeping."

"I promise I'll not get in the way.  Please.  Let me sit up with you." the young man bleated.

"No.  We'll need you alert tomorrow to help deal with things."

"What things?" 

Kinch stirred.  Both men held their breaths, then expelled them when he sighed and relaxed into a deeper sleep.  Newkirk rose, grabbed Carter's sleeve and pulled him to the further side of the stove.

"That was close.  Now go to bed and don't wake up anyone."

Carter looked over at Kinch, fast asleep, and snickered.  "Isn't it just like the old days, when we used to play tricks on him, and try to pull off stunts without him knowing?"

Newkirk felt a twinge of guilt. "Well, it's not 'the old days' now.  Honestly, I don't know how anyone ever could put up with you." 

Carter's grin faded.  "What things did you mean?"

Newkirk rolled his eyes in exasperation.  "Well, Doktor Falke, for one," he blurted out.

Carter looked bewildered. Newkirk rolled his eyes again, silently cursing. "Look, Andrew," he said carefully.  "Marlena's bound to come checking on you and Kinch and the Reds tomorrow.  She knows you've been sick.  She's probably found out what happened to the colonel..."

"She has found out. I saw her stitches on the colonel's cheek."

"Alright, then.  She has found out.  We know she'll be all flippin' anxious, and she usually tries to hide it by being prickly.  We know what the guv'nor's like when he's the least bit out of sorts.  She'll ignite him like one of your bombs, or he'll ignite her, if we don't diffuse things and we've got to be awake to do it. At least you do.  She'll heed you before she'll listen to the rest of us."

Carter still looked mulish. Newkirk rolled his eyes a third time. "Look, Andrew. Why'd you think I stopped Kinch from sitting up with the Colonel?"

Carter pondered it.  "Because you were anxious about him?"

"Because I was anxious about all of us!"  He swallowed his ire. He was about to say too much again.  _Better prepare him now, instead of leaving it until morning._  "You've got to understand.  The colonel … may not be himself ... and Marlena, when she comes … may not be feeling so good either."  He wet his dry lips. "You like Marlena, don't you?"

Carter blinked, perplexed. "Of course I do.  She's my friend.  Yours too."

"Right, and she's also Kinch's friend. Now, what would you and I do, and what do you think he would do, if someone hurt her?"

Carter's eyes widened.  "Did someone hurt her?  Boy, I'd get really mad." He gaped, and then vigorously shook his head.  "You don't think Colonel Hogan did, do you?  He wouldn't do a mean thing like that.  I mean, he doesn't like what she says half the time, but he'd never hurt her."

Newkirk shushed him. "Calm down, will ya?  I didn't say he did.  I'm just saying that, …well when I was in the tunnel, listening in, I heard Hochstetter say that he got the medicine from her that he gave to the colonel.  She might have got hurt.  I'm just warning you. Now Kinch has had very little sleep and when a man's tired and ailing, he gets cranky."

"Kinch wouldn't lose his temper.  Not at Marlena."

Newkirk mentally threw up his hands.  _The oaf doesn't catch on that she's been … abused.  Maybe it's just as well he's such an innocent.  It might make things easier for Marlena to bear if he doesn't understand what she went through._

"I just don't want problems between them, or between her and Colonel Hogan.  We've got more than enough already.  Marlena thinks a lot of you.  If you're rested, you'll be calm and sensible and you can quiet her down if she gets upset."

Carter looked at Newkirk, his faced creased.  "I can't sleep.  Honest.  I want to.  I've tried.  But I keep seeing the colonel's face when I shut my eyes.  Please, Newkirk.  Let me watch him with you.  Please."

Newkirk studied him. _If he tossed and moaned, he would wake up every guy in the barracks. Probably the guv'nor as well. Kinch will get sore, and then blame himself for being sore.  That won't help.  And if he's not going to sleep anyway…_ "Alright.  Go inside with LeBeau while I get a couple stools.  And if either of you wake the colonel, so help me, I'll strangle you both."

* * * *

It had been a wearying, noisy vigil.  Newkirk did not know how Colonel Hogan could have slept through LeBeau, drunk, singing La Marseilles. Or through Carter's snoring. The young demolitions expert had crawled into the upper bunk and fell asleep after a half hour of staring at the colonel.  When LeBeau finally passed out, Newkirk wearily made his way into the common room. Removing his cap, he slumped down on the stool nearest the sleeping Sergeant Kinchloe and kept watch on the colonel's quarters through the open door.  It wasn't that he no longer wanted to stay beside Colonel Hogan, because he did.  It was that, even asleep, Kinch seemed to be the only sensible person among them, and he felt the need of his quiet strength.  _Brothers in a common struggle._

 _"What are we going to do?"_ he thought for the umpteenth time.  Hochstetter was not finished with the colonel.  He would come back, or he would have another go at Marlena and force their secret from her.  She was in no condition to escape him, and, with the colonel injured so badly, neither were they.

What if Hogan dies?  It was a possibility he did not wish to consider; but fractured ribs may mean there were also internal injuries. Newkirk was not too sure about anatomy, but what if a splintered bit of bone had pierced the colonel's heart, or lungs, or a major blood vessel.  _"No, he would have either died quickly here, or Marlena and the surgeons would have spotted and fixed it.  Marlena thinks Doktor Kruger's a marvel. Hope she's right."_

_"But what if he dies?  How do we go on?"_  Newkirk looked down at his sleeping colleague.  The little green imp stirred again; but he subdued it.  No doubt, Kinch was the right man. He was the man the guv'nor chose. But Kinch was not the senior man, and Kinch was a black man. Negroes were seen as inferiors, even by the Allied whites. Kinch's obvious abilities put those assumptions to shame; but few who saw Kinch as a man accepted him as their equal. His authority came from Colonel Hogan. Lose the colonel, and Kinch would lose his power and position.

What would happen to him then?  Kinch was not an officer.  Since Colonel Hogan had singled him out to be his adjutant, the other ranks did not count him as one of themselves. He would not be allowed to return to obscurity without a beating to 'put him in his place'. What would happen to the operation if he took charge, and what would happen to anyone who supported him?  It would be dangerous to remain his friend.

* * *

Kinch stood at Fraulein Hilda's desk, the telephone receiver clutched tight in his hand. He tried to appear unruffled, but he felt his heart jerk and race. He could not understand why his Doktor Fledermaus had apparently abandoned them. She knew about Colonel Hogan's injuries, his own pneumonia, the Russians, Carter.  Burkhalter had broken Hochstetter's 'ring of steel'.  She could come to them.  She certainly would have come to treat her 'Brother Andrew'. Why didn't she? 

He heard the tremor in her voice when she spoke his name.  "I am sorry, Sergeant Kinchloe; but I am much too busy.  You have the medications.  You have the skill. A-all will be well.  Just…" Then it came out in an almost breathless rush, as if she could not trust herself to hold it in, or to say more than she did. "Please, Sergeant Kinchloe. Take care of yourself and Sergeant Carter.  Take good care of yourself and all of them." He heard her unspoken 'dear mein Herr' in the throb of her voice.  She sounded almost hysterical. _Why?_

"Doktor, what should I know?  What should I do?"  He spoke calmly, quietly, respectfully, suppressing his urge to cough, while he silently begged her to understand the deeper meaning of his words. He could not say aloud, in front of Hilda and within earshot of Klink and his guards beyond the outer and inner office doors, what he wanted to say.  _"Tell me why you won't come.  Tell me what has frightened you.  I need to know.  Don't hold it back."_  He knew she could not tell him over the telephone.  Since Hochstetter stepped up his persecution of Hogan, they had to be more circumspect than ever.  But he had to know why she would not come.  She had to come.  He needed her.

His world had become unstable. He was still weak and ill, too ill to nurse Colonel Hogan. He was afraid the colonel's life would slip through his fingers because he could not think clearly. Newkirk, LeBeau and Carter were fine men, but not the most astute.  He trusted them with his own life, but he could not trust them with the colonel's. That life was too precious to lose. So many and so much depended on him.  Marlena was a physician.  Marlena would know what to look for, and what to do.  She could get what was needed.  Perhaps she could even recommend through the Red Cross that Colonel Hogan be repatriated. Even if she could do nothing for the colonel, her presence here would mean something. She would take care of Carter and the other sick men. He could relax in her company, feel that he too would get well.  He needed to get well.  The colonel needed him.  The men needed him.  He had to regain strength. But the burden was so heavy. He was so tired.

He drew in his breath. "Doktor, will the colonel completely recover?"

He sensed Hilda stiffen, fingers poised upon her typewriter keys. He waited with bated breath for the answer.

"With care and time, ja.  He will recover."

_"And when will that be, Doktor Fledermaus? Six months?  A year? We have an operation to run.  Hochstetter's on our tails.  We don't have that time."_  Kinch demanded silently, fighting for self-control.

He repeated her words to Hilda, and then spoke into the telephone receiver – his quiet, composed self.  "Then tell me how to care for him."

Picking up a pencil and drawing Hilda's steno pad closer, he began to jot down her instructions. Marlena's careful, precise voice showed that she was growing calmer – the clinical, emotion checked Fraulein Doktor Falke was taking over.  He felt his own aching heart ease and his spirit grow calm as he wrote.  Planning and carrying out assignments had always soothed his frustration, and he was more frustrated than he had ever felt.

What was Marlena holding back from him?  Kinch knew Colonel Hogan knew what it was, but he forbade him from finding it out and angrily refused to discuss it.  Of course Doktor Falke was too busy.  Was Kinch so deaf he could not hear the almost constant thrumb of the bombers passing over their heads?  The more experienced surgeons had been called away to deal with the casualties in Dusseldorf and elsewhere. That meant she, old Doktor Kruger and Kruger's young assistant surgeon Doktor Eckhart had to tend to everyone in Hammelburg.  She was overworked, like she said, and now that the epidemic had run its course; they were not to bother her.  In fact, with Hochstetter prowling around like a mad dog, Hogan did not want any POW to even speak her name.

This was not the usual pique after one of their many arguments. Colonel Hogan obviously feared for Marlena Falke's safety. He must have put the fear of Hochstetter into her to make her stay away, and she must be scared witless or she would be here for Carter's sake. Kinch vowed that, the moment Hogan's condition improved enough for him to leave him to the others, direct command to the contrary, he would storm her surgery and shake her fears and an explanation out of her.

He straightened up, and with a "Right, Doktor. Will do" handed the receiver to Corporal Simms. He had not been surprised that Marlena had summoned his taciturn friend.  Her first instruction to him was undoubtedly "keep Sergeant Kinchloe within the barracks".  _Translated: "keep Herr Kinchloewen out of the tunnel until his cough and fever have left him". _ 

Kinch's lips tautened in a grim smile. The colonel could pull rank, and his bro' Marcus would disregard rank where his welfare was concerned; but if they and Marli thought they could keep him from the radio, they'd better think again. Simms and Newkirk had drugged him senseless once on Colonel Hogan's orders, but he wasn't going to fall for their tricks a second time.

The sergeant's grim smile relaxed as he recalled the pains Colonel Hogan had taken to gift him with that Christmas fruitcake. _The ingredients must have cost a mint, and to convince London to send it!_ Kinch felt touched and humbled. Most officers, white or coloured, would not have bothered staging a celebration to ease an enlisted man's pain at missing his beloved sister's wedding. Colonel Hogan had bothered. The colonel could be unexpectedly thoughtful at times.

Blinking away the sudden tears stinging his eyes, he saw Hilda glance quickly away from him.  He managed a more reassuring smile; but she kept her eyes fixed on her typewriter.  _"So she really has feelings for the colonel."_  Kinch sighed. Another complication.  He had thought Hilda was merely enjoying the forbidden thrill of flirting with an enemy officer.  He knew Colonel Hogan was wooing her, like he had wooed Helga, Klink's previous secretary, merely to obtain information and co-operation.  It appeared his charm had again worked all too well.  Remembering Helga, Kinch hoped the more worldly-wise Hilda had kept the colonel from going the full distance.  Marlena would be angry if she was confronted with another demand to abort an unwanted child, and he had no strength to deal with an angry Doktor Fledermaus. She would indeed be 'a bat out of hell.'

* * * 

Kinch sensed it again when he and Simms left the administration building: the broken conversations, the heavy silence as every man's eyes seemed to fix on him.  Since the day Colonel Hogan had singled him out and made him his adjutant, he had felt neither fish nor fowl, but never had the feeling been more oppressive.  He took a centering breath, straightened to his full six foot two inches, fixed his most impassive expression upon his face and crossed to the prisoners' side of the compound.

He had thought that assisting the colonel to dress would be his worst ordeal of the day. Even at his best, Colonel Hogan lived up to his code-name of Papa Bear when roused from sleep. He was at his surliest that morning. Just because Hochstetter's thugs had beaten him, he groused to Kinch, did he have to wake up to a snoring duet between Carter and LeBeau? What right had Newkirk to let those two into his office? What right had Newkirk to be there?  Couldn't someone make a decent pot of coffee?  Would Kinch stop tucking him into bed or dressing him up?  He was their commanding officer, not his radioman's doll. 

Hogan had brusquely pulled away from his supporting arm just before he opened his door.  He had held him back with a searing glare, then crossed the room to the outer door.  He was intent on making it outside on his own, as if his ribs were not fractured.  As if nothing was wrong with him but a broken wrist.  He could not hide the cast.  The sleeve of his bomber jacket would not fit around it, but he had insisted on wearing the leather jacket instead of the longer and roomier woollen coat. It was more familiar to the men, he said.  He had to project an aura of control, in order to remain in control.  Kinch, three paces behind him, calmed his anxious conscience by telling himself that wearing the familiar bomber jacket helped the colonel feel in control, and that would help heal his lacerated spirit all the faster.

The fifteen men in the common room had literally frozen in the acts of getting ready for roll call and breakfast.  They stared appalled at the colonel's face, watched him with indrawn breaths as he twisted his lips into a smile and lurched past them on his way outside.

But when the men had then turned to him, it was all Kinch could do to keep calm. He had seen their anxious expressions on Carter's face when the young man had stared down at Colonel Hogan's body the night before and then stared up at him. This was Carter multiplied fifteen times.  The men were looking to him for reassurance and guidance. How could he convince his friends Colonel Hogan would recover if he could not convince himself?  How could he reassure when he needed reassurance?

Roll call was Carter's face multiplied a thousand times.

Hogan had greeted Kommandant Klink with his usual cheeky remarks. He had sauntered at the Kommandant's side while the German inspected the prisoners and took the report of barracks guard after barracks guard.  Everything appeared 'as usual'; just the way the colonel wanted it.

Trailing in Hogan's wake with his three cohorts and the rest of their barracks, Kinch saw Carter's anxiety staring out of almost every POW's face.  Hogan's display of nonchalance had managed to raise their spirits. _No doubt about it, the colonel was a marvellous actor, a master confidence man, but he could sustain the illusion only so long._

Kinch had caught Newkirk's sidelong glance.  Newkirk had not only seen the cuts and bruises, he had heard all that Hochstetter had said and had had done to their commander.  Newkirk averted his eyes.  Kinch knew then that Newkirk had heard more than what he had told him. He managed to push the sour thought aside – he had neither the time nor the strength to indulge it – but it hovered at the edge of his conscious mind.  What had Newkirk heard that he would not tell him?  Why had he looked at him so speculatively?

Now, as he and Simms passed a group of men, he heard one sneer. "We won't have black apes lording it over us when Hogan's dead."  He immediately clamped his hand on his friend's shoulder and muttered, "Don't rise to it."

They walked, seemingly oblivious of the stares, until they were out of sight.

"Well?" Simms demanded when Kinch released his grip.

Kinch audibly sighed.  "Relax, Marcus. It's just a few malcontents."

Simms gaped. "Kinch, bro. Listen up. You can't avoid this.  If Hogan dies, what happens to you?"  He took his companion by the upper arms and gave him a slight shake.  "Have you forgotten what you are?"

"No.  I haven't forgotten." Kinch said evenly.

"I hope not.  Sometimes I've wondered if you see yourself when you look in the mirror.  You're black, bro; but you're a white officer's right hand man. You're a contradiction to everything we've known back home."

"So are you," Kinch rebutted. "You're Air Corps – you were trained to fight.  I was never supposed to be in combat.  They needed a radioman for one mission and I was the only one around."

Simms hugged his arms to his chest. The air between them felt very cold. "You're the man Hogan chose.  He called you out of everyone in camp and gave you his authority. Maybe Carter's the only white who's never resented it."  He paused.  "You have his trust, so some of our folk distrust you. You're set apart from all of us, Bro. If Hogan can't function, where are you? Protect yourself."

"If there's a power struggle, I'll have other things on my mind than my health."

Simms grimaced. "The 'store'."

Kinch gave him a wry smile. "It has to come first."

Simms pondered it, then nodded.  "I'll back you."

"Thanks, old buddy." Kinch bit his lip. "Marcus, I know it's been hard for you to stand by me …"

Simms waved away the thanks.  "You're my bro, Sergeant.  It's been harder for you.  I don't know how you've stood it so long."

Kinch sighed, and looked away.  The words came out with some bitterness. "I'm not a 'House Negro'."

"I know.  You bear it calmly; but you're not resigned." Simms shrugged. "Most of us say 'yasssuh', or keep out of sight. We let the whites have their way so they don't trouble us.  Hogan asked us what we wanted. You chose to tell him. You were deferential, but I know it was sergeant to colonel, not lackey to master."

Simms looked down at his feet. "There's something in you, something about you I can't put words to. A sort of dignity. I've never thought you sold yourself to him."

"The colonel's quite a man," Kinch said simply. "I've not regretted serving him."

"So long as you're happy, Bro.  So long as they don't conquer you."  Simms' lips twisted in affectionate scorn. "Maybe you've conquered them."

Kinch mimicked Newkirk's accent. "Not bloody likely."  Then he sighed.  "I'm so tired of this. Why can't we live together as equals?"

"Too much blood spilt between us.  If they admit we're equal to them, they admit they had no right to make us slaves, or keep us down.  If we open up to them, it's as if we don't care that they humbled us."  Simms leaned against the wall and studied his hands.  "I like them:  Carter, Olsen, Newkirk, LeBeau. Colonel's got my support.  Not their fault things are as they are."

He looked up, across the compound. _"Colonel's an amazing magician. Had us living in a dream, that maybe we could live together as equals. I think we're about to wake up."_

Turning, the black airman saw his thoughts mirrored on James Ivan Kinchloe's face.  He had guarded the door while the sergeant listened in on Hogan's and Klink's conversation via the coffee-pot, not overly surprised that Kinch had disobeyed Hogan's standing order not to eavesdrop on him. 'Right to know' or not, there were times when the colonel's men should know the colonel's mind.  If Hogan clearly could not cope, but pretended he could, he had to be 'retired'. Would Kinch stop him?  Or would he too pretend Hogan was capable, so he could keep his authority?

 He watched Kinch narrowly.  He knew his friend's loyalty to Colonel Hogan was almost absolute.  The colonel parked his race outside the barracks door and expected his men to do the same; but sometimes Kinch forgot to pick his up again. Kinch had become colorblind since he became Hogan's adjutant.  In a world full of black shirted and white hooded bigots, Simms thought that was a dangerously foolish attitude. He loved his blood brother, and wanted to keep him safe until he finally remembered he was black and Hogan and the other men were white.

Simms sucked in his breath, feeling a chill he could not blame on the cold air around them.

Colonel Hogan has not lost his will to live. He had proved that during roll call, he reminded himself.  _We can foster it, with time and lots of care. All would be well then – at least until Hochstetter's next visit._

Kinch was thinking the same things. "Alright, Marcus. I'll admit the colonel got quite a going over, but I'm not letting on to the guys – not even to the Colonel – how bad off I think he is.  He can't lose face or we'll all lose faith. Then we're done for."

"You can't baby sit him forever.  If he can't function, can you count on the others to back you?"

Kinch looked taken aback. "What do you want me to do? Lead a revolt?  Keep the colonel in chains?"

"Of course not, but don't tell me you haven't thought up a contingency plan. We want to hear it."

"We?" Kinch tried to keep his tone light, but he was growing incensed.

"It's not a rebellion, Bro. Yeah.  All the barracks but Carter, and even he's worried that the colonel's lost his super powers.  They asked me to put it to you, if Doktor Falke sounded the least bit doubtful."

Kinch's voice sounded strained.  "She must have told you something she didn't tell me."

"Just that I was to do everything but kill you to keep you upstairs and make you well."

Kinch opened out his hands. "What do you think I can do?  I'm only a staff sergeant.  The guard dogs have more say about the colonel's movements than I do."

Marcus Simms still pressed the issue. "Goldilocks will want to know.  If he can't function, they'll want him out. We could take him home.  He could get a good long rest. So could you."

Kinch folded his arms over his chest, looked his friend over with narrowed eyes.  

"Kinch…"

"He's our C.O., Marcus. We can't gainsay him.  Sure. If he deteriorates, or if he's not safe here, I'll radio Goldilocks.  They can order him home. We can't. I'm not risking court martial and execution for any of us by trying to subdue him."

"No. Just risking our lives," Simms groused.

Kinch laid his hand on Simms' arm.  "Mine as well as yours."

Simms raised his eyes and let out a great sigh. "I don't know who's the greater fool."

***

"Well, I just don't understand it, that's all. It's been three days!  You'd think Marlena would come, at least to check on the Colonel."

Newkirk gave Carter a searing look.  "Did you ever think Marlena might be ill?"

Carter sank back on his bunk, deflated.  "Oh.  I never thought of that.  You know, I've never considered a doctor being sick – a doctor knowing how to treat sick people and all, you'd think they'd never get sick.  But then, doctors are human too," he mused. "At least, Marlena is.  Sometimes, now that I know her so well, I forget she's a real doctor."

"Of course she's a real doctor!  Do you think she pretends to be one, just so she can see your ugly mug every two weeks?"

"No," Carter said slowly, his mind still pondering how a physician could get sick.  "It's just that Schultz said he told her that I've been sick and that Kinch had pneumonia and she knows Col. Hogan's really hurt because she helped operate on him and she's always come before and…"

 "And. And. And." Newkirk wanted to throw something at him. "Andrew, can't you keep your 'ands' to yourself?  You'd irritate an angel, you would."

"But do you think she's mad at us?" Carter persisted, his guileless face creased with worry. "Maybe she and Kinch had a fight.  Kinch is still sick and you know sick people are cross as bears.  Especially the strong ones like Kinch.  And Kinch has been coughing and weak and …"

Newkirk pounded the table.  "There you go with your 'ands' again!"

Carter shrank back.  "Sorry."  He felt miserable.  He thought now that they finally had the colonel back safe, if a little banged up, that everything was all right.  But it wasn't. What was wrong with everyone? Biting and snapping and moping about.  _It's worse than ever and no one tells me anything.  They just pretend that everything's all right but I know it's not.  They keep treating me like I was a little kid._

He glanced at Newkirk's scowling face and subsided even further back in his bunk.  He felt smaller than a mouse and about as welcome in the barracks.  He could not seem to say or do anything right.

Of course, Kinch was still quite sick. Pneumonia sure took the stuffing out of a man.  And Colonel Hogan, injured and cranky, was a taxing responsibility too, especially when you have to nurse them and you're not feeling well.  Sick people can get grouchy, but it wasn't like Kinch to lose his temper at him just for asking an innocent question about how soon he thought the colonel would be well.  Neglecting to set a timer or losing a compass – of course Kinch had a right to be sore at those.  That was important.  That was the operation.  Everyone was keyed up during missions, and if Colonel Hogan said it once, he said it a dozen times; a slip up could cost everything, even their lives.  The colonel himself could really get upset when one of his schemes went kablooie because someone slipped up.  Of course, to be fair, he would get mad just as much at himself as at them when things didn't work out the way he planned. 

He knew he somehow kept making the colonel angry. Whenever he asked what he was doing wrong, so that he could stop doing it, the guys either kept telling him to shut up, or kept telling him he wasn't to blame.  He couldn't understand why the colonel didn't want him around, but if the colonel didn't, then he didn't.  But the colonel didn't want Kinch and LeBeau and Newkirk around either. That really puzzled him. Kinch was always at his elbow, the colonel complained. Of course, Colonel Hogan had to have Kinch nearby, to give orders to.  Kinch was his adjutant, after all.  He was in charge of running things until the colonel was fully fit again. Besides, Kinch said it was an adjutant's job to look after his officer's health and safety and Kinch always took his job seriously. LeBeau wasn't happy unless he was doing things for Colonel Hogan, and he could be more stubborn than a mule where the colonel's health was concerned.  But Colonel Hogan got even more irritable when LeBeau fussed because he didn't have the heart to push the little guy away.  So he would get even more irritable at Kinch because Kinch was bigger and because Kinch was available to get irritated at, and he would get irritated at Newkirk too because he'd be angry at himself for getting mad at Kinch when Kinch was sick and it wasn't Kinch's fault and because Newkirk was also there and…

_And…And…And… there we go again! _Carter sighed.  _It's strange that Marlena's not come to check on us.  You'd think she'd be anxious.  She hasn't seen us and we haven't seen her since Kinch got sick and Hochstetter sealed off the camp._  Carter stole a glance at Kinch. The man was seated at the table, hunched forward, staring at his cold coffee with the most worried, helpless, exhausted expression Carter had ever seen on anyone's face.

_Maybe he's' worried about more than just the colonel. Kinch never loses his cool when it comes to being brave but sometimes he does when I've done something really dumb, and maybe Marli shot off her mouth once too often about the colonel or about Americans or the military.  She's not exactly tactful.  She might have said something and he might have said something and well, Marli can take things hard at times, especially when she's stressed. All the casualties from the air raids must be frazzling her. But they don't quarrel much and Marlena respects Kinch more than she respects anyone else.  Besides, Marlena has never let arguments keep her from being our doctor.  She always comes.  Still, with the colonel being wounded, she might be too upset or Kinch might be too upset.  Maybe she wants to make things right but she feels too ashamed to face him._

_But Schultz has been acting strange about Marlena too.  He keeps heaving big sighs and changes the subject whenever I ask if she's shown up in camp._

_Klink's been acting strange too, come to think of it.  He knows the colonel's bad off and he's got a camp full of sick prisoners and no doctor – not even a medic among us since he transferred Wilson to Stalag XVI._

Carter snickered as he thought of their grumpy medical corpsman in Colonel Crittendon's POW camp.  He must be driving Wilson nuts.

Newkirk shot him a searing look over his cards.  Carter cast down his eyes, but he could not help smiling at what Wilson must be going through. It sure felt good to laugh again.  Newkirk should try it.  He looks like he ate a pickle.  But he mustn't laugh.  Not with the colonel acting so strange and Kinch at his wits end what to do and sick to boot.  _They sure must've worked Colonel Hogan over some for Kinch to look that worried.  It's not like he hasn't seen bruises before, or felt them, or given them.  So, the Colonel must really be in a bad way.  But it doesn't seem right that Marlena's not here.  Maybe I ought to ask Colonel Hogan's permission to go see her myself and get her side of things._

But, to Carter's surprise, Hogan adamantly vetoed the request.  "If Doktor Falke doesn't come, leave her alone." Carter began to protest, but Hogan cut him off and made it an order.  No one was to visit the Fraulein Doktor until she visited camp first.

Carter felt even more hurt and bewildered.  He was just trying to make things right.  But Colonel Hogan was acting awfully strange.  Officers as officers were strange.  He could never figure out what they were talking about or what they wanted. He never could figure out Colonel Hogan because he was so smart, but that was ok since none of the other guys could figure him out either.  Kinch knew a bit, Newkirk knew a bit, and LeBeau knew a bit.  Put together, they could sum up Colonel Hogan pretty well and explain to him, Carter, what he, Colonel Hogan, wanted.  Usually.  But now it seemed everyone was at fault.  LeBeau was really upset. Even Newkirk was feeling the pressure.  Kinch looked drained out and his cough was getting no better.  Of course, it didn't help that he was barred from the tunnel and that there was not enough fresh fruits and vegetables, or even canned, for him to eat.

Carter tried not to fret about Colonel Hogan. He looked so white where the bruises didn't show.  That Kinch still had to help him dress disturbed Carter more than anything else.  Usually all Kinch had to do as his adjutant was mind the operation and serve as the Colonel's liaison with the men. The "health" part of the C.O.'s health and safety had never entered into things before. Carter did not like admitting it to himself but he was getting worried that Colonel Hogan was no longer himself. He was irritable and jumpy one moment, and so quiet the next. _He doesn't plan our next mission or talk about sabotage, and Baker says London's getting edgy. Although how anyone can get edgier than the colonel seems incredible._  Carter frowned. If he was not the man he had been, what were they going to do?

***

Hogan heard the snicker. He scowled across the small room at his radioman, who was biting down hard on his lower lip while pretending to read a repair manual.  _Where's Kinch's mind these days? He should be reading that in the tunnel, not up here, where the Krauts could confiscate it._

He looked harder at the man, ignoring Sascha Pasternak's howl at his latest blunder into the Russian language.  Even after four days and repeated doses of penicillin and sulphonamides, his adjutant still looked gaunt and half asleep, weary with the effort to keep watch over him.  The antibiotic had worked wonders. Kinch would have probably been dead by now without it.  Pasternak too, and the remaining Russians in his barracks, would have died of the pneumonia they had brought into Stalag Luft XIII.  The Russian sergeant was improving rapidly, but his American counterpart was not getting any better.

Hogan felt guilty, knowing he was the cause of it.  Rather, he wasn't.  Hochstetter was.  _Damn the black toad._

He had lain awake for the last four nights; eyes closed so as not to disturb Kinch or whoever Kinch had permitted to keep vigil over him.  He could not sleep, much as he longed for sleep.  The memories returned every time he closed his eyes, and with every stab of pain. The jackboots kicking him in kidneys, groin, chest, head.  The gloved fingers crushing his throat, bashing his head against the roughly plastered wall of the punishment cell.  The little cuts with the dagger, pinpricks to what would follow.

And, when he slept, he underwent the recurring nightmare of seeing Hochstetter's apes throw Kinch's body into the fire, of seeing the flames consume him like they consumed the bodies of the dead Russians.  Sometimes in the dream, Kinch was alive, either bound or too weak to move.  Sometimes, in the dream, he would cry out to him. Then he'd wake and see him dozing against the support of the bunk. It was all he could do to keep from calling his name, or from touching him to assure himself he was awake and Kinch was alive. Sometimes the Kinch in his dream would not cry out, and that was worse because then he would go on dreaming.  He would see Hochstetter leering, sneering.  He would see him come toward him, flanked by his goons and holding out his hands, dripping with Kinch's blood.  Or Carter's.  Or Newkirk's.  Or LeBeau's.

_"See what I've done to your damned ape, Hogan.  To your fool. Your thief.  Your frog.  They died because of you, Hogan.  They died because of you.  I broke them, Hogan.  I broke them into pieces, and every piece screamed your name." _

But even that was nothing to what Hochstetter had actually told him.  Hochstetter was capable of all evil, but Hogan had not even dreamt the repulsive toad would rape Doktor Falke to force her to give up her cache of penicillin. Not only rape her, but gloat about it to him. When he agreed to trade secrets for the antibiotics, he had thought Hochstetter would get them from his black market connections or from a co-operative physician. It was an open secret that the local doctors were stockpiling drugs to use when the Allies dropped bombs on Hammelburg.  He thought Hochstetter was lying about what he had done to Marlena, but the details had unnerved him.  _What had Marlena said to make him stop? What if he knew all about her and her connection to us?_

When he awoke in the recovery room and saw what she could not hide of her face, he knew it was true.  Those frightened, distressed, slightly clouded blue eyes.  The slur in her speech that confirmed to him she was sedated. Not overly so, since she had watched over him, and had apparently assisted the surgeons in putting him together.

Poor Marlena. He had never given her due credit for either her fortitude or her medical skills.

_About time the 'great Papa Bear' realized he can't perform every trick in the book.  Marlena couldn't fire a shot, but she could make sick men well. About time he realized how much he owed his pacifist pain in the butt who cared for them at the risk of her life._

Glancing at Kinch's worried face, he longed to tell him why Marlena refused to attend them. If he knew, he would comfort her. She needed his comfort as much as he needed her care, and, if Kinch comforted her, he would not be constantly hovering at his elbow. He would also keep Carter from pestering him for permission to visit her and find out what the problem was.

Marlena did not want them to see her, at least not until the bruises faded.  She had not wanted him to see her.  She did not know he knew the reason why. She wanted to get over it herself, if she could.  Hogan did not think she could. Not alone.  She shouldn't be alone.  He wanted to tell Kinch to fetch her into the tunnel and radio London for a plane or sub to take her home.  The Americans had crossed Germany's western border. The Russians were advancing through Poland.  The war was almost over. A few months in an English prison was better for their Doktor Pacifist than Hochstetter's 'attentions' and a shallow unmarked grave.

She should go home, and his men should go with her. Now. While he still could hold out.

He shut his eyes and bit the inside of his cheek. He did not think he could get over what Hochstetter had done to him. Every snore Olsen snored every night. Every scrape of the coffeepot against the metal of their wood burning stove.  Every fork Carter fumbled and dropped.  Even the fluttering noise the cards made as Newkirk shuffled them shot panic through him.

Hochstetter was not through torturing him.  He would never be through torturing him.

Hogan shifted, seeking a less uncomfortable position. Pain lanced from his broken ribs.  He stifled the groan that would have alerted Kinch.  He did not want, or need, the man's fussing.  What he desperately wanted was for Kinch to get well quickly, close down the operation and get everyone out.  The men.  Marlena.  Everyone.

He felt those inquiring, anxious dark eyes upon him and tried to concentrate on Sascha's lecture upon the merits of Stalin and Roosevelt.  He conjured up what he thought was a look of absorbed interest, but Kinch had frowned.  

Kinch always knew when he was bluffing.

He opened his mouth to say something, anything, to distract him from ushering Pasternak out and asking what could he do for him.  The door banged open and Carter, wild eyed, burst into the room.

"Colonel!  Trouble!  Big trouble!"

Kinch, on his feet, barked out a reprimand. Stammering an apology, the dishevelled young man poked his finger into the air behind him.

Hogan, struggling out of his bunk, heard the Russian's muttered curse and Kinch's gasped 'No!" before he saw the three SS guards, like gleaming black beetles, push into his quarters past Newkirk, Olsen and Simms.  One goon shoved Carter against the table. The second shoved Pasternak away while the third trained his gun on Kinch.  Hochstetter entered the room, Kommandant Klink following like a dog at the heel of its master.

***

_Oh, that Major Hochstetter is slimy_, Carter thought, _the way he talked to the Colonel with that sneering voice, inviting him to be his guest for dinner._  Carter watched his two friends, Newkirk and LeBeau, wriggle their way into the room and try to wriggle in on serving the dinner, so they could be available to protect the colonel.  

He opened his mouth to join in, but immediately found Sascha's hand clamped over it. "Nyet, tovaritch!" The Russian hissed in his ear.  He jerked his head slightly to the left.  Two of the three SS now had their guns pointed at Kinch, blocking his path to Hogan's side. Only one covered them.  Apparently, Hochstetter thought the black sergeant was the greater threat, or the surer hostage for Hogan's co-operation.  Kinch stood stock still, his fists loosely clenched, the realization of his impotence on his face.

Carter carefully moved his eyes to the right. He could see the guns, boots and elbows of two other SS on either side of the door.  Though it, he glimpsed Schultz holding back Simms and Olsen with his pudgy hands.  He squeezed his eyes shut, praying that Schultz would not see the knife clutched in the black corporal's hand.  He prayed even harder that Simms would not use it.

"You can open your eyes now, Andrew.  They've taken him."  Kinch's voice, bitter, resigned, cut through the sudden silence.

Pasternak dropped his hand, muttering something in Russian that sounded regretful.  LeBeau began to whimper.  Newkirk put an arm around him and guided him through the doorway.

Carter gaped at Kinch.  "What should we do?"

His friend turned his eyes away. "What can we do?" he muttered.

"Something!  Hochstetter's going to kill him!"

Kinch pulled the door closed, but not before Carter saw him exchange a look with Newkirk. He sank upon Colonel Hogan's bunk and bowed his head in his hands. 

Sascha Pasternak laid a warm hand on Carter's shoulder.

"You are a devoted young man; but Comrade Kinchloe is wiser. There is nothing you can do but bow to fate." He looked around nervously. "There are many like Hochstetter in Russia. They are like your writer Conan Doyle described his Dog of the Baskerville. 'A Hell-dog'."

Carter hung his head, too disheartened to correct his quotation.  Kinch looked at him, guilt stricken, then at the floor.

Olsen knocked, and then put his head through the doorway.  "They've lifted the guard around the barracks, Kinch.  All the Gestapo goons are around the guest house now."

Kinch muttered, "Thanks" but he did not look up.  Sascha looked at him and sighed.  "Comrade Carter, I think Comrade Kinchloe wishes you to escort me back to Moscow-on-the-Rhine."

Carter looked nervously for Kinch's nod.  It was slow in coming.

Pasternak stood before Kinch. He studied him; then he gently touched his shoulder. His lips curved in a slight smile.  "My regards to Comrade Newkirk."  He brought his hand up solemnly in a salute.  "Comrade Sergeant Kinchloe."

Kinch blinked up at him, then slowly returned the salute.  "Comrade Sergeant Pasternak."

Pasternak ushered Carter out of the room, gently closing the door behind him.  He took Carter by the shoulder and steered him toward the barracks he referred to with heavy humour as 'Moscow on the Rhine'.  He did not speak until they were there, but Carter tensed, sensing his companion intended to say something he did not want to hear.

"Andrei – that is your first name in Russian, is it not?"

Carter wet his lips, apprehensive. "Is it?"

"Da."  He motioned to the bench outside the door.  "Sit down, Andrei."  It was said genially, but it was an order.  Carter sat.

Pasternak lowered himself beside him.  "You have great devotion for the Comrade Colonel. Da?"

Carter blushed at the word 'devotion', but agreed enthusiastically, "I respect him a lot.  He's a great man."

Pasternak slowly smiled. He nodded once. "Comrade Kinchloe and Comrade Newkirk have great affection for you. So does the French comrade, LeBeau.  Are you as devoted to them as you are to the Comrade Colonel?"

Carter looked a little uneasy.  That sounded a little like a threat.  He remembered Colonel Hogan saying that they were not supposed to be too friendly to Russians, even though they were allies, because Russians were usually spies.  They were not to know about the operation. "Yes sir, er, Sergeant.  I mean Comrade."

Pasternak slapped his knee.  "Andrei.  Be easy.  Comrade Kinchloe would not let me bring you here if he thought I would hurt you.  I do not even ask how Comrade Newkirk could disappear from a closely guarded barracks."  He flicked his finger at Carter's rank badge.  "You have one stripe more than Sergeant Kinchloe upon your sleeve. That means you are his superior, da?"

Carter shrugged, self conscious. "That's just the Army.  They don't know how good Kinch is. I'm not really his superior.  I just outrank him."  He looked at Pasternak's arm.  "Do you outrank me?"

The Russian's smile grew gentle.  "Andrei, most sergeants I have met – most who are not Russian – would say, "I outrank you" whether they outrank me or not. If you are Comrade Kinchloe's equal, then I am yours."

"I don't think I'm that. Not here," Carter replied, tapping his head.  He was still nervous about where this conversation was leading him.

"Da.  I understand.  I ask because I want to know who the man of power will be, now that Comrade Colonel is …" He waved his hand as Carter spluttered a protest.  "I am clumsy.  Please, forgive me, Comrade Carter, but I must speak frankly.  In Soviet Union, when a man like the Gestapo major – a man in the Chekka – provides an armed escort for his dinner guest, the friends of the guest do not expect his return." He paused significantly. "Nor do they ask to see him.  Not if they wish to avoid such an invitation sent to themselves."

"It's not like that with us and Colonel Hogan!" Carter's eyes narrowed. "If you think that's what Kinch meant, then you're wrong!  There's no one Colonel Hogan trusts more than he trusts Kinch, and no one Kinch would rather work for.  I bet he's thinking up a plan right now to save him."

The barracks door opened and several heads poked out. One man, a burly corporal, stepped outside.  Pasternak motioned him back inside with a few stern words.  Then he turned back to the indignant American.  "Comrade Carter.  Compose your emotion.  I saw ample proof that Comrade Kinchloe is devoted to the Comrade Colonel; but I think the comrade sergeant is too wise to think of rescuing him. Because he is devoted, he wanted solitude to compose his heart.  That is why he let you escort me back to Moscow on the Rhine.  It is why I closed the door upon him and why Comrade Corporal Simms will see he is not disturbed.  Perhaps the comrade sergeant is thinking about rescue," Pasternak's voice went gentler, "but Comrade Carter, I think his act of devotion will be to keep you safe from harm."

"You mean," Carter swallowed.  His eyes went large. "You mean Kinch won't save him?"

"I cannot see into Comrade Kinchloe's mind, Andrei," Pasternak said gently.  "What you Americans call fatalism is what a Russian calls sense.  I am sensible. If I were devoted to Comrade Colonel, and could not save him, I would not try.  Instead, I would try to save Comrade Colonel's friends if I could."

Carter sprang to his feet.  "Kinch will save him!  I know he will!"

Pasternak searched his face, then sighed.  "If he does not abandon him, then he is a sentimental fool."

"He won't."  Carter's assertion sounded weak, even to him.  "I know he would never do such a thing."

Sascha Pasternak looked out, across the compound, to a charred spot in the snow.  "I have heard that Comrade Kinchloe spoke words from the Bible for my dead comrades, when he himself was ill.  Was that so, Andrei?"

Carter nodded.  "Yeah.  He did. He gave a eulogy too."

The Russian looked perplexed.  "What is 'eu-lo-gy'?"

"Words you say about someone when he's dead."  Carter struggled to explain.  "Words like, 'He was a good man" and why he was a good man."

Pasternak looked incredulous. "But he did not know my comrades."

"He did not need to. He said that we were brothers, because we fought against people who wanted to treat other people like slaves."

"And the comrade sergeant knows his own people's struggle well," Pasternak mused. He rose.  "Andrei, go back now," he said gruffly.

"Sure."  Carter started walking quickly away.  Then he remembered his mother had always told him to be polite. He did not understand half of what Sascha Pasternak had said, and he did not like any of it, yet the Russian seemed to have his welfare at heart. It would be bad manners not to thank him.

He walked back, and shyly held out his hand.  "Thanks for letting me visit."

The Russian sergeant looked searchingly at Carter's face, then at the proffered hand. He slowly clasped it in his.  "Farewell, Tovaritch."

Carter shook and released it.  Just as he took a few steps, Pasternak called out.  "Comrade!"  Carter reluctantly turned. "Tell Comrade Sergeant Kinchloe … tell him I say 'thank you' for eu-lo-gy."

***

Doktor Falke paid the messenger, slit open the flap of the manila envelope and drew out the papers.  Ausweiss.  Orders and permits. All correct.  All papers stamped in the appropriate places.  She slowly returned to her consulting room, gnawing her lower lip as she read the covering letter.  She read it through twice, to be completely sure of every detail, and to ponder what lay ahead and what she must do.

The Red Cross had telephoned early three days ago, just after her second call to Stalag Luft XIII.  The Allies had bombed four cities simultaneously the night before.  All Red Cross personnel were ordered to the bombed cities to succour the injured and to assist in the clean up.  She was to put her affairs in order and depart for Köln from the Hammelburg Bahnhof this evening at 2100 hours.

She could not sleep without morphine. She wandered around in a daze, crying, trembling violently at every noise.  She was incapable of performing the simplest task.  Of what use would she be? What use was she now, to anyone?

The words of refusal were poised on her tongue; but they had died stillborn.  She was doing no good hiding from her fear and her memories in a haze of morphine.  She was letting herself slide into a living death.

What had Herr Kinchloewen said about people who walked around semi-embalmed? It was not his way, and she would disgust him if she made it hers.

She said "Jawhol. Zu bifels." and put the telephone receiver into its cradle, resolved not to let her fears conquer her.

But she was very frightened.  By now, a suspicious member of the staff would have informed the Gestapo of the time she had spent with Colonel Hogan in the recovery room.  She had lived in terror of interrogation since she arrived in Germany.  Hochstetter's vicious attack on Colonel Hogan proved that the operation's days were numbered.  

She knew she could not hold out against Hochstetter's brutality.  He would rape her again, and this time he would demand the secret. She had to warn her friends of the danger she posed to them now, while they could get away.  She wanted them to take her with them, but that was likely impossible.  She felt eyes all around her.

_Then, let us take those eyes away from them – to Köln._

She needed time away from here.  She needed to go where people did not know her and would not guess at what had happened.  She needed to escape from Hochstetter too, if only for a little while.  The all-powerful Gestapo were everywhere, but even Hochstetter would pause a few seconds before snatching her away from a mercy mission to his fellow Germans. His superiors might not think raping a German physician for her drugs was an acceptable form of intimidation. At least, they would demand their share of the black market money they thought he got for them.

He would insult the Red Cross if he detained her, and the Red Cross was a respected, and powerful, international organization. She would not go quietly.  She might not live, but she could make a stink that could prove embarrassing should the Germans wish to sue for peace.  The Protecting Power in Geneva would hear of it somehow and demand an explanation. High-ranking Nazi officials banked with the Swiss, and the Swiss government must be using that as leverage to guard their neutrality.  A lot of ill-gotten money could 'disappear' if the Red Cross complained to the right people.

Major Hochstetter had no proof she was in league with spies, or that the senior prisoner of war of 'her' Stalag was a spy, and he had enough decency, it seemed, to honour his bargain with Colonel Hogan by exchanging the penicillin for his information.

Doktor Falke pondered what Colonel Hogan's lie had been, but decided she was better off not knowing.   It must have been prodigious.  Antibiotics were rarer than peace, and costlier than gold. 

She dialled the hospital to inform the Herr Direktor and Herr Doktor Kruger of the Red Cross's orders.  To her surprise, Herr Doktor Kruger himself answered the telephone. He told her that the Red Cross had already called the Krankenhaus and that he had persuaded Herr Direktor to allow her to go.  _"It is the best thing for you, Fraulein Doktor, to be actively at work.  I know that you will come back to us stronger."_

He was right, she thought, fingering her Red Cross armband.  She would come back stronger.  She was needed and she must not think of herself.  Others had lost everything. She still had shelter and food.  Besides, she was determined not to show her face before her friends in the POW camp until the bruises had faded.  She could more easily lie to Colonel Hogan and to his men then.

_I could say I fell down a flight of stairs in Köln.  The marks will have faded by the time I return. As long as he does not see the rings around my wrists… Oh, he would not believe it.  He is too astute.  I do not have Corporal Newkirk's poker face.  But he must believe it.  I cannot have him know the truth. _

Colonel Hogan would have her out of Germany on the next submarine or the next plane, to keep her, and thus his operation, out of Hochstetter's grip.  She frankly did not care to spend the rest of the war in an English prison, fretting and awaiting trial for a crime she did not commit.  Bad enough she was no longer a Canadian citizen and had been stricken off the roll of the College of Physicians.  Bad enough she would be held captive because she had defied the quota ban to smuggle Jews.  She was guilty and would pay the penalty.  But she had not knowingly smuggled Nazi spies into Canada and she refused to be imprisoned for that. She preferred to spend the time with the colonel and his men, even if it meant she would die with them. At least until the Gestapo took her, she could be of some use here.

But she had to leave them. Colonel Hogan knew she would crack when Hochstetter applied pressure, and she knew he would kill Hochstetter for her sake as much as for his own if he found out what the Gestapo major had done to her.  Her conscience would not forgive her being the cause of murder, and, in his weakened state, the colonel would not survive the attempt.  

She had to talk to Colonel Klink again.  She had to examine Colonel Hogan and see her friends one last time without them seeing her.

Her stomach rumbled. She made her way to her kitchen. Rummaging in a cupboard, she found a bag of dried apple rings. She pulled out a ring and nibbled on it pensively. The smell and taste reminded her of the apple rings she had brought to the Christmas party in the tunnel.  That reminded her of the fruitcake Colonel Hogan had ordered from London as a surprise – a gift to help Sergeant Kinchloe celebrate his sister's wedding. She smiled.  _A lovely gesture that eased a friend's sore heart. _ She recalled how the colonel had kept his order to London secret from his radioman.  It was highhanded behaviour, having him drugged.  _So like Colonel Hogan._

She looked at the apple ring speculatively.  Her smile broadened and a little life came into her drug dulled eyes.  She knew how she could examine the colonel without his knowledge. _"Turn and turn about, eh, Colonel?"_

***

Klink put down the telephone and checked his watch.  1800 hours.  Roll call was at 1830 hours.  Although his window was closed and the drapes were drawn, he could hear faint strains of _Der Ring des Niebelungen_ from the 'guest' quarters.

He shuddered at the word 'guest'. How horribly the word grated on his nerves.  What was Hochstetter doing to his 'guest' now?

He removed his monocle and laid it carefully in the centre of his blotter.  Then he bent his head in his hands.  He doubted he would ever find pleasure in Wagner's operas again.

Hogan was going to crack before they killed him.  No one could withstand two beatings by the Gestapo. He will confess to any ridiculous lie that sadist Hochstetter wanted to hear: that he was the leader of spies and saboteurs and commandos and partisans, that he was responsible for all the racketeering and counterfeiting in the Reich, that he had seduced Eva Braun. Anything, no matter how outrageous.  And he would not just babble about himself.  Every one he had ever spoken to would be implicated. His men. Schultz. Fraulein Hilda.  Fraulein Doktor Falke. Even him, Wilhelm Klink, the Kommandant of Stalag Luft XIII.  The man with the blameless record. 

Of course, there had been those petty irregularities that happen to any man or officer, especially to an aristocrat and a bachelor. Klink admitted them with a man of the world shrug.  Amounts 'borrowed indefinitely from the officers' funds, or from the camp funds.  Kisses and caresses from wives and daughters.  But there had been no successful escapes from his Stalag.

Klink inflated his chest with pride. It abruptly deflated.

There was his rivalry with the major over the singer Lily Frankel.  Hochstetter would love to get his revenge for that.

Hogan could deny everything until he died and Hochstetter would still have a confession from him.  But Hochstetter wanted the cocksure American broken and begging for mercy before he killed him.  

It would be a slow, humiliating death.  Hochstetter would see that it was so. That incident after the Russians were cremated, when Hogan attacked Hochstetter because Hochstetter gloated over the deaths, saying he looked forward to burning more of Hogan's men.  What were those men to Hogan that he would risk his life and everyone else's to get the drugs that saved them?  A Negro, a dozen or so Red Russians and a few others.  Dregs.

What would happen to him, Wilhelm Klink, when Hogan cracked?  What could he do to prevent it?

Klink paced his office, rubbing his hands or fumbling with his monocle. He could not keep still. He sat down at his big desk, but he could not settle down to his paperwork. He threw down his pen and smoothed back his thin hair with shaking hands.

The music – that raucous music – kept drawing him to the window.  He kept straining to hear what that music drowned out.

Klink opened the window and gazed across the compound to Barracks Two.  He had confined the prisoners to their barracks.  He did not want them to hear their colonel's moans and cries above the crescendos of the music.   He did not want Hogan's shadow or his black tempered Englander to incite a riot or stage a rescue.  Ill though he was, Kinchloe could do it, and Newkirk would do it. Neither man would be sitting still.  Hogan's men adored him.  They would do anything to save him, perhaps even give up their own lives.  A thousand unarmed POWs against 80 armed guards, plus Hochstetter's men.  Suicidal but desperate men did not care.

Klink did not want to drown in a sea of blood, particularly not in his own.

He could not count on the loyalty of his guards.  He had seen the delicacies and the blood tonics left outside Barracks Two for the 'Herr Oberst.'  He knew Hogan split them with Kinchloe and the other sick POWs, joking that what did not kill them might cure him.  _I think they would swallow poison willingly for him._

The telephone rang. Nerves frayed, Klink barked an irritated "Heil Hitler" into the receiver.

"Doktor Falke?"  He smoothed back his hair, in an effort at calm. He was a gentleman.  "Forgive me, Fraulein Doktor. I did not intend to snap at you. The pressures of work … You must go to Köln?  I am sorry to hear that, Fraulein Doktor, but if the Red Cross ordered it, of course you must go …"

He blanched and nearly dropped the telephone receiver. "You want to see Colonel Hogan's injuries but you don't want him to see yours?  I do not see how that is possible, Fraulein Doktor. … You have an idea?"

Klink sat up straight as he heard it.  An idea of his own formed in his mind.  A fantastic idea. He thought it over while Doktor Falke outlined her own scheme.  It fit within hers like a hand within a glove.  An innocent deception, she called it. The good Fraulein Doktor did not know who would be the dupe and who the deceiver.  Klink felt like chortling.  It was like scoring off Hogan. In fact, if it were not on him, Hogan would probably appreciate the joke. If Hogan by some miracle survived his latest ordeal without cracking, he must be sent out of Hochstetter's reach.  There was no telling what he would reveal if he was tortured a third time. 

Hogan had certainly acted heroic, risking his life for his men, but heroes were merely brave fools. Fools must be kept under lock and key, to protect the sane.

_I must take them unaware.  Schultz reports that Kinchloe is constantly with him.  He is the obstacle I must get rid of.  If he is caught between his friends and his leader… He is a prudent man, and he would not want to sacrifice his comrades' lives. But would he give up their colonel to ransom them?_

_Hogan's men mean a lot to him, and he's always put their needs before his. Kinchloe is his loyal adjutant.  Hogan trusts him to carry out his wishes.  That may act on him the way I wish.  _

_A sick, dispirited man can be easily controlled.  A little pressure, carefully applied where he is most vulnerable ….  Ja. He will not resist. It will work._  

Smirking, he picked up the telephone receiver.  "Heil Hitler, Feldwebel.  This is Oberst Klink.  Put me through to the duty signals operator.  I want to radio the Herr Oberst Baume, Kommandant Oflag Luft Drei, Sagan, at once."  He waited.  His telephone rang again.  "Heil Hitler.  …  Danke, Hauptmann.  …  Kommadant Baume? …  Heil Hitler! … Ja, it's Klink. …  I wish to transfer to you the troublemaker I spoke of.  The American colonel. … Ja.  Hogan. That's the one. … Ja.  I know I said I'd rather have him than worse, if there could be any worse, but he must be transferred to you immediately. My sergeant of the guard will explain everything to you. … Danke! He won't cause you any trouble until he's awake."

_A hibernating bear's what you'll get, old friend, but I know you can tame bears._

* * * *

Newkirk turned back to his cards.  From out of the corner if his eye, he saw Carter pull his knotted string from his pocket and dejectedly pass it through his hands.  _"At least 'counting his blessings' keeps him quiet,"_ he grumbled to himself.   

Newkirk scolded himself for his cynical thoughts.  He reluctantly admitted that Kinch had a good idea, giving him a 'memory string'. He just wished he had been the man who thought it up.  As Carter explained it to him, most people tie knots in their handkerchiefs or strings around their fingers to remind them to do something.  Kinch's idea was to tie the knot whenever they survived one of the colonel's plans or, in Carter's case, whenever he did something right.  Newkirk had scoffed that there must be damned few knots in his string, but Carter said mildly his string had a lot of knots.  He began rambling them off, would be rambling still if he had not stuffed a sock in his mouth. Still, the string kept Carter from bothering him and so Newkirk admitted he felt grateful to Kinch.  Of course, gratitude went only so far, but he did feel grateful.

He felt pity as well.  Also resentment.  Kinch still was not sharing the load.  And now Hochstetter had done it again. And something happened to the colonel. After he had given such a stellar display of fortitude, walking along the entire formation and whistling every Allied nation's anthem, he had practically swooned in Kinch's arms.  Even Carter could not believe the colonel was invincible after that.

Newkirk shuffled and reshuffled his cards, pondering the present situation.  It was becoming too much to bear. Colonel Hogan would not survive a third beating. They had to get him home, but how, if he was so badly injured?  And it was killing him that he could not talk about Marlena Falke. He could not tell the colonel he knew what had happened to her without disclosing how he knew. The colonel hated being spied on.  He could not tell Kinch.  It would haunt Kinch to know his life had been saved at the expense of his Marli's peace of mind.

_Our Doktor Falke, who always held herself so erect, who always held her fear at bay, cringing to scum._ The pack of cards snapped out of Newkirk's clenched hands and scattered over the table and floor. Carter stared at him in concern.  Newkirk forced a bland expression. He couldn't tell Carter. It would destroy the poor oaf. Andrew looked on Marlena as a sister. But Newkirk's fingernails dug into his palms as he vowed again to kill Hochstetter, slowly, for the pain he had caused the people he loved.

***

Carter couldn't help staring at the closed door.  He turned to Newkirk, who was laying out his cards with the air of a man who has to do something with his hands to keep them from strangling someone.

"What do you think is going on there?  Why does Kinch get to keep us out?"

"Just be glad Kinch is in there.  I don't know what the guv'nor would be like if he had died."  Newkirk sighed.  "I hate to admit it, but he needs Kinch right now.  None of us would be any good to him."

"What do you mean? We'd be heaps of good!"

"Oui. André speaks the truth. We should at least be there too."  LeBeau started his determined way to the colonel's room.

Newkirk quickly intercepted him.  "No, mon ami.  The guv won't open up to us.  It has to be Kinch.  Somehow, they understand each other, " he added reluctantly. "I think Kinch is the only one who could keep his wits about what he's seeing and hearing right now."

"What do you mean?" LeBeau asked.  "Why couldn't we?"

Newkirk tugged him into a corner, as far away from Carter as he could. "Because Kinch has no illusions about our Colonel Hogan, and we do.  Face it, Louis. You see the guv'nor as a hero fighting to free France like he was the Scarlet Pimpernel.  Carter thinks of Colonel Hogan as someone like Superman.  The colonel can do anything, he says. Nothing can hurt him.  He always saves the day. Except he can't save the day now because Hochstetter has hurt him. Kinch has always seen Colonel Hogan as a man, not as a storybook hero."

LeBeau stared at him, eyes flashing. "Oho! So you and Kinch think I am an imbecile because I think of mon colonél a saviour.  Mais non.  I will believe that thought of you, never of Kinch."

Newkirk threw up his hands, exasperated. "Don't be so touchy!  I'm not saying that you're a fool or that Kinch thinks you're a fool.  I'm saying that Kinch doesn't think our colonel is invincible.  Colonel Hogan does not have to keep up a front before him.  He can lay bare to Kinch what he feels and thinks."

"And he cannot to us?"  LeBeau demanded, outraged.

"That's right, mate," Newkirk quietly replied.  _Not even to me._

"And what do you think of le colonél Hogan then, if you do not think him a hero?

What did he think of Colonel Hogan?  A brilliant planner, a conniver, a kindred spirit. He more than respected him. He liked him. But what if he was no longer those things?  What if he was now deadweight? Did he owe loyalty to a broken man?  He was 'Every Man for Himself' Newkirk.  Did he want to be loyal?

Was that the reason the guv'nor turned to Kinch, instead of to him?  Neither of them held illusions about him, yet Kinch had always been quietly steadfast. No heroics, but always at his right hand.

As he pondered the question, Newkirk recalled a story Kinch told him one evening while waiting for Hogan, Carter, and LeBeau to return from 'outside'.  Carter had left his comic books strewn around the radio room.  Kinch had picked them up, and flipped through one with amused contempt before handing them to Newkirk.

"Tell Carter I'm not his maid, will you?  And that the next time he leaves his comics in my section of tunnel, what I'll do to him won't be funny."

 "Then why are you smiling?" Newkirk flipped through them. He studied a panel. "I don't know why you Americans call them 'comics', unless you find the sight of a man in tights ploughing his fist into another man's puss amusing."

Kinch had to chuckle. "It depends on the shape of the man in the tights. I prefer to wear shorts and socks when I plough my fist into a face, but each to his taste."

He arched his brows at Newkirk. "Did Marlena ever tell you about Superman? Or, rather, how she thinks Superman was conceived?"

When the Englishman shook his head, the sergeant gestured him to a stool.  "Well, sit and I'll tell you what she told me."

Leaning back, Kinch pulled the story from his memory. "One hot August, in '33, a mob of Nazi worshippers started a minor riot in Marlena's hometown when they tried to chase the local Jews off the local beach.  Not as bad a riot as the one Jessie went through in Detroit, but bad enough to make headlines in the Toronto papers.

"The way Marlena tells it, she, her two teenaged friends, Frank and Lou, and Frank's cousin from Cleveland, were plenty upset. The Beach is quite a spot for kids in Toronto, and Marli's friends are Jews. They talked about the riot and one thing led to another. Hitler's rise to power that Spring.  Nietzsche and his super race. They discussed if a superman would use his powers for justice and for the weak or to make himself a dictator.

Frank's father had a print of Fritz Lang's 'Metropolis' that he was willing to run in his theatre for the boys and their pals after the main feature. The guys were sci-fi nuts and they were teasing Marlena to go see it with them.

"You know science-fiction scares our Doktor Falke. She refused to go, even though the theatre was air-conditioned. Instead, she sat on the steps and fanned herself by fluttering the pages of The Scarlet Pimpernel in front of her face.

"Lou snatched the book from her hand.  He strutted in front of her, holding it out of reach and striking noble attitudes, he simpered, "They seek him here.  They seek him there.  Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.  Is he in Heaven?  Is he in Hell?  That demned elusive Pimpernel."  Marlena said he had looked so funny, with a lock of wavy black hair dangling over his forehead and his thumb and forefinger of his left hand held over his eye like he was wearing an eye-glass.  Frank's cousin Joe sketched Lou in a particularly heroic pose: feet apart, chin thrust up, arms akimbo."

Kinch gestured to the comic books with a shrug and a smile. "Maybe Marlena's wrong.  Still, life is made up of little things like that.  Perhaps Joe Shuster did show his sketch of Lou Weingarten to his friend Jerry Siegel. He might have told him their conversation, and Carter's comic book hero – Superman – may have been conceived then. Who knows?"

Newkirk had answered his shrug with a shrug of his own.  He looked speculatively at his companion.  "Do you believe in heroes, Kinch?"

"Depends on how you define a 'hero'.

"Colonel Hogan?  Us?"

Kinch mulled it over. "I don't see ourselves as heroes, at least I don't call myself one. The colonel's a genius, but a hero?  Not if a hero's superhuman. It takes a lot of courage, being a soldier; but Marlena would never call him a hero.  Takes as much courage being a fireman, she'd say.  Perhaps it takes less courage to repair phone lines in a thunderstorm, but I felt heroic after I did it. Still, it was my job. A threat to food and shelter's a great stimulant.  For the pay?  The adrenaline rush?  Some higher reason?  What makes a guy take the risk?  What makes him a hero and not just a brave joe on the job or fool or a daredevil?

He looked introspective.  "I suppose a hero is someone who actually does risk his life unselfishly. Very few of them around, but they're around, so I believe in them.   It took a lot of courage for Jessie to go out and doctor the people who got hurt in the riot in Detroit – especially those who were our friends. I'd say she was a heroine.  She'd say she did her job.  Who's right?"

He sighed and waved his hand at the comics. "Superman?  He's fiction. I can't believe in him.  I don't believe a man with such powers would fight for the weak. He was just the wishful thought of two Jewish boys who read their people were getting hurt and wished they could send someone to rescue them."

 "And you?  What do you think of mon Colonél?"  LeBeau demanded once more. "Is he, to you, a hero?"

Newkirk looked at the closed door.  "I don't know.  I'd never really given it much thought until now." 

"Well, perhaps you should," LeBeau huffed, turning his attention to the stove.

Newkirk stared down at the cards in his hands. What did he think of Colonel Hogan?  Colonel Hogan was the guv'nor.  The man who got things done with style.  The man who could con Klink and Burkhalter and Schultz – even Hochstetter – into doing whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted it done.  The man who gambled on longshots with a smile, with his life and theirs as the stakes.  The officer who not only permitted him to lie and cheat – to be himself – but encouraged it.  A man who liked to live and to hell with the rules. This man could work miracles, could make you believe that with self-confidence and a little effort all things were indeed possible.  The most amazing man he ever met.

A hero?  Maybe not by Kinch's definition. He couldn't see the colonel doing something without getting a payoff, any more than he could see himself doing it.  So, he wasn't the Scarlet Pimpernel, unless the old boy in Marlena's storybook got paid for saving those aristocratic Frogs. By Carter's definition? No, Hogan was not indestructible, and certainly not faultless.  But that was fine by Peter Newkirk.  He never could abide saints.

The guv'nor was brilliant and resourceful. That went without saying. But one could never tell with the brainy ones if they were a little cracked or if they just saw things from a different angle.  He'd follow Colonel Hogan to the ends of the earth and back, and he'd believe they'd get back too.  So maybe he was just as cracked. But he was just as cynical as Kinch, even more cynical. Maybe not as quick to understand the colonel, but just as savvy.

Well, the colonel and Kinch are both Americans.  It's to be expected they'd be more in sync, since they spoke the same language so to speak.  Maybe Kinch could see the man behind the confident smile and the merry eyes and the dashing bravado. Maybe he was seeing that man now, with his defences down.  Maybe that's why the colonel chose him as his number two.  He knew that he could be himself with Kinch since the man held no illusions about him, and because he knew Kinch would back up the act of invincibility so that Carter and LeBeau could keep faith in their hero.

What was going on behind that door?  Newkirk stared at it, worried.  He strained to hear movement, voices talking. Even if it was only Kinch's voice, that would be something.  It would mean the guv' was aware of things, wouldn't it?  Or would it?  It was too damned quiet in there.  Why didn't Kinch open the door, reassure them the guv'nor was safely asleep in his bunk?

The door flew open then.  Not the door of Colonel Hogan's office.  The outer door of the barracks.  There was no time to glare at Olsen for not paying attention to watching it.  Three guards, machine guns at the ready strode in, pushing them away from the colonel's door.  Another caught LeBeau as he was about to open it, and shoved him aside, nearly into Schultz's arms. The big guard clamped a hand over the French corporal's mouth, and looked, terrified, into Newkirk's eyes, shaking his head. Newkirk caught the message. "Don't warn them. Keep quiet, or everyone will die."

Klink entered then, frowning, hostile.  He looked from LeBeau, struggling in Schultz's arms, to the other men.  He looked at Schultz, who nodded once, then he jerked his head to the outer door.  Schultz thrust LeBeau through it.

Newkirk sprang to his feet. "You filthy …" The words never left his lips. The machine guns swivelled toward him. There was a cold silence. All the times he had stood before judges and guards who could make his life hell if he showed his defiance or contempt, suddenly kicked in.  Newkirk felt a chilling trickle of sweat run down his back.

No sound from outside.  No shots.  _What were they doing to Louis?  Would they do the same things to me?_

Then one jerk of the head and one word from Klink: "Aus."  Newkirk looked into Klink's pale, blue eyes.  Cold.  Hard.  For an agonizing moment, Newkirk could believe the cringing, cowardly 'Bald Eagle' was indeed the toughest Kommandant in all Germany. But he knew Klink was afraid, very afraid, of the Gestapo, and of Major Hochstetter in particular.  Men in fear of their own skins were dangerous to cross.  For them it was kill or be killed. His desperation would goad him to order them shot if they resisted.  

The first shot would warn Hogan and Kinch of their danger; but what could they do?  If Kinch opened the door, the guards would open fire on him. What good would his death, or their own deaths, do Colonel Hogan?

Newkirk sullenly moved toward the door, then saw Carter. The fair young American was standing stock still, mouth working, eyes goggling.  He grasped Carter's arm, tugged at it.

Carter stared at him. "Aren't we going to do something?" he whispered urgently.

"Nothing we can do, pal." Olsen was at Carter's other side, his usually cheerful face sombre.  He took Carter by the shoulders and steered him outside.

Marcus Simms took a step toward the colonel's door. Then he stopped, uncertain.  If he uttered a sound, Klink would open fire on them all.

Simms did not believe in wasted words. Kinch would lay down his life for the colonel on the shout, but the thought of his bro dying, and then the colonel dying the moment after, unnerved him. There was a frightened, desperate look in Klink's eyes.  Desperate men were impulsive men – all the more likely to kill.  Maybe Colonel Hogan could talk him out of whatever he was determined to do. He had done it almost constantly for almost three years. Maybe Kinch's self-controlled demeanour would calm the Kommandant.

It was better to leave. Simms hoped that the colonel and Kinch could save themselves.  But if they couldn't  …  Simms looked at Newkirk beneath hooded lids, then at the outer door.  Newkirk nodded once, slowly, his mouth hard. Marcus Simms taut lips twitched. If Kinch and Hogan died, he knew where Newkirk's knife and his own would be when Klink passed through that doorway.


	4. Chapter 4

Klink gripped his riding crop and took a pace forward. "Sergeant, I want you out of this barracks with the other men."

Sergeant Kinchloe glanced down at the unconscious man.  His jaw firmed. "I'm not leaving the colonel, Kommandant."

Klink raised his voice "Guards!" Two burly men entered the Colonel Hogan's quarters. They immediately trained their submachine guns on the black sergeant, who stiffened to attention.

"What do you want, Kinchloe?  Two hours exercise in the compound or thirty days solitary confinement in the cooler?"

Icy blue eyes stared into smouldering brown. For a long, tense moment the two men – white and black – glared at each other over the body of the unconscious American officer.  Then Kinchloe bent his head in surrender.

Klink exhaled. "I'm glad you're sensible.  I did not want to have you shot."

"I would have welcomed it, Kommandant." Kinch choked out.  "Much good my good sense has done me."  He swallowed and stared down at his commander. His hands balled into fists.  "If you have poisoned him, …"

"I too am sensible, Sergeant Kinchloe.  If your colonel dies, I know you will try to kill me."  Klink paused, uncomfortable. "The slightest disobedience, Sergeant, will result in severe reprisals. Any attempt, and I will have you shot." He motioned toward the door. The black sergeant slowly nodded, then slowly left the room.

Klink stared after him, then motioned to his guards. "See to it that he and the others are well away from this barracks; but do not abuse him."  He waited a few minutes, until the prisoners' muttered curses and protests had died away. Then he crossed to the window, opened it, and beckoned.  A moment later Schultz entered, escorting a heavily veiled woman clutching a worn black bag.

"Danke, Herr Kommandant."  The woman parted the veil, revealing a face mottled with cuts and bruises. "I am sorry for the subterfuge."

"Bitte sehr, Fraulien Doktor.  Whatever help I can give… ."  Klink squeezed her elbow. Doktor Falke winced, but she managed to nod and to subdue the moan. She had less than two hours to examine her patient and leave – no time to worry about her own pain.

"Danke."  She looked down at the man lying so still in his bunk.  Klink handed her the needle case and the vial of morphine.  "Danke."

Soft as it was, it was clearly a dismissal. Klink bowed stiffly and left her to her patient.

Bending low, Fraulein Doktor Maria Helena Falke stilled her trembling hands, pulled down the blanket and began her examination of Colonel Robert Hogan.  Bruises, abrasions, everything she knew she must see, she forced her mind to dwell upon.  But it was hard, so hard, to concentrate on her task.

Half her mind was outside, in the exercise yard with Sergeants Kinchloe and Carter. They too were ill, Herr Kinchloewen very much so, and they were dear to her.  They should not be out in the cold air; but what could she do?  If either of them saw her injured face… She could not bear that, so they must not see it.

Neither must Colonel Hogan. The morphine had done its work quickly and well.  He was quite unconscious. She gingerly touched his scalp, searching for her sutures, and fought to still her tremors once more. With her other hand, she touched the scar on her cheek.  Her colleague, Doktor Kruger, had done good work on them both.  She thanked God for him and for Herr Schnitzer.  The veterinarian had risked his life to take her to the hospital, after the Gestapo had beaten and … .  She forced her mind to dismiss the memories.  She was here for Colonel Hogan's injuries, not for her own, and she wanted to see the men she loved so much – even though they must not see her.

She stroked the colonel's dark hair.  Sergeant Kinchloe would have died of pneumonia, but for him.  _"Greater love hath no man than this, that he would lay down his life for his friends."_  The tears spilled down her cheeks.  _"Oh, Colonel Hogan!  How I have wronged you!"_

Her heart rose up in reproach against her.  She had not believed – her pacifist convictions had not allowed her to believe – that any career military man could show compassion.  That Colonel Hogan had any deep feeling for his men.   Colonel Hogan was a vain, cocksure, arrogant American, the kind that had always set her fuming.  _"Mad, bad and dangerous to know"_, just like Lord Byron. Rude, and sometimes crude.  Perhaps lewd, but not to her.  She would give him that. He was not a gentleman; but he was a fair fighter. 

She caught herself smiling. _Herr Kinchloewen says I still fight the War of 1812.  Perhaps it's true. I don't like the way Americans act as if they have no respect for me or for Canada, as if they own my country and can do as they please with it, and that I have no right to hold any opposing viewpoint. I hate that Colonel Hogan belittles me and my beliefs, yet expects me to accept his unconditionally. _

Her smile melted into tears as she continued to stroke his hair.  "_And yet we have had some good arguments, haven't we Colonel? Andrew said that you've always told him, 'I'd rather have Doktor Falke as an angry friend than a cringing foe.' That 'We're here fighting for her democratic right to criticize us. Just because she refuses to kill, just because she hates what we must do, that does not make her our enemy.'  'Don't try to convert my men, Doktor Pacifist. Stick your thorn in me, not in Carter.  He doesn't understand you like I do.'_

" As if you've ever understood me, or I you.  But we did try to, didn't we? You protected me, even though you were suspicious of me. Even when your 'Goldilocks' told you my citizenship had been revoked, you gave me the benefit of the doubt. And I have done nothing but rail at you.  A lesser man would not have kept me safe, would not have tried to persuade his superiors that I was harmless.  Oh, Colonel! Why did I refuse to see how kind you really are beneath your boastful swagger?"

Doktor Falke repressed a shudder at the memory of that operation he had undergone. Her first sight of Colonel Hogan's bruised face, the cuts that laid open his scalp and cheek – she had been barely able to maintain her cool, impassive mask.  She hoped it would be put down to a woman's weakness for a handsome face and not to any personal feeling for the prisoner.  She was a physician by training, a surgeon by necessity and responsible to the Red Cross for the prisoners' medical condition.  She had to remain in the operating theatre.  She had to recall every insult, every quarrel, every argument they had had to keep from breaking down.  She remembered how much she owed to him, how much she relied on his promise to get her safely home.

Looking at him now, she realized she no longer wanted to go home.  Going home meant never being with these men again, but still missing them, still worrying about them wherever they were.  Going home meant ending her friendship with Sergeant Kinchloe. It was not safe for either of them to remain friends – even in the northern United States. Even in Canada.  The horrible Detroit riot in the summer of 1943 had brought that home to them.  Herr Kinchloewen had so nearly lost his sister in it.  Doctor Jessica Kinchloe shared her brother's lion heart. They could not discover every detail – stuck in Germany as they were, and try though they desperately did – but they knew Doctor Kinchloe had deliberately risked her life to treat the suffering, when she could have been beaten to death just for venturing into the street.

"_A remarkable woman_," Doktor Falke thought, proud of her fellow physician, and humbled by her courage.  She would not cause harm or shame to her or to her brother for the world.

The door suddenly flew opened. Looking toward it, she stared aghast into James Ivan Kinchloe's enraged eyes.

The black sergeant jerked her away from his colonel.

"Doktor Falke! What are you doing here?"  He shook her furiously.  "Why did you have him drugged?  Why?"

"Mein Herr…," she gasped.

"I trusted in you! I stood up to him for you! I…" Kinchloe's eyes focused on her bruised face.  "Marli!" 

His grip on her arm slackened as it registered.  "It was your penicillin, wasn't it?" he gasped. When she did not answer, he shook her again. "Tell me!"

She nodded weakly. Her voice was barely audible as she admitted, "Yes, James. It was."

Kinchloe wrapped his arms around her, and held her close. "Doktor Fledermaus, forgive me." His eyes closed tight.  "Please forgive me."

She hugged him fervently, unmindful of the pain.  She had so nearly lost this man, and she would be so lost without him.

"Will you forgive me, Herr Kinchloewen?  And the Kommandant.  Please. Forgive him too. I was afraid of your reaction if you saw me thus. We both were afraid, the Kommandant and I, of what Colonel Hogan might do if he saw my marks, but I had to examine him. I had to reassure myself that he was still alive. I had little time after the operation to check him. I had to send him here to you as quickly as I could, lest he mutter in his delirium. If I stayed with him for long, people would be suspicious of me, and that would not help him either. And I had to see you, dear mein Herr, before I left for Köln."

"For Köln?" Kinchloe drew back and stared at her. "Why are you going there?" His voice shook. "Who is taking you away?"

"The Red Cross." She looked into his chocolate brown eyes, so full of concern for her. So full of concern for his colonel as well. As she gazed, she saw something else in those eyes – something she had never seen in them before. Helplessness.

"You must have slept though the noise of the planes, mein Herr. Four simultaneous bombing raids.  Hamburg.  Frankfort. Köln." She paused. "And Heidelberg, I'm afraid. I do not know if Herr Schultz knows, and I do not want to be the one who tells him."

Kinchloe swallowed. "His family?"

"I do not know any details, Herr Kinchloewen. All I know is that all available Red Cross personnel have been called on to succour the injured, and that I have been assigned to Köln."

Kinchloe sank upon the stool.  "I hoped you could've stayed. I – we – I need you so."

"I am to leave as soon as I can." Doktor Falke replied. "Kommandant Klink is driving me to the station." She put her hand on his shoulder. "Herr Kinchloewen…"

"James."  He looked up at her.  "You called me 'James' just now, and I've never felt less like a lion. My sister…when you called me 'James'…your voice sounded just like hers."  He wiped his eyes.

"James." Her fingers touched his collar. "I wish I could call you 'James' again when you're free; but..."

"Call me 'James' now.  I need to hear it." Kinchloe summoned up a smile and took her hand. "Don't worry about the future, Doktor Fledermaus.  Toronto and Detroit are not so far apart, and I don't intend for us to be."

"If I ever see Toronto again, and, dear mein Herr – James – so much divides us." 

Kinchloe drew her down until she sat gingerly on the edge of the bunk.  "You are my friend and I will not lose your friendship, whatever happens to us."

Marlena patted his hand, and gave him a grateful smile.  "James…" She hesitated.

"Go on.  Tell me the worst.  I can take it now."

"Colonel Hogan is in a very bad state indeed. His ribs are broken…"

"Which means his heart and lungs are likely injured." He looked beyond her, to Hogan's lax face, and silently cursed Hochstetter.

"His stomach as well. And his abdomen seems swollen. His liver…" She smiled. "I forgot. You've read my textbooks."

"I've read them; but I'm not Jessie, and I'm not you.  There's no M.D. after my name."

"I doubt there need be.  I've never known a man so capable." Doktor Falke returned to her mental list.  "Take care what he eats. Corporal LeBeau will know what to prepare that he can digest. His arm is also broken.  His scalp … I don't know, mein Herr. Did he seem changed? Dozy?  Irritable? Forgetful?  Abrasive?" 

"He seemed himself." Kinchloe replied, a little too abruptly.  He was not going to let on to Marlena what he could not admit to himself.  He also could not bring himself to tell her that he would be unable to carry out her instructions.

Doktor Falke searched his face, puzzled and concerned.  Then she sighed. "Sprains. Contusions.  The morphine… I am sorry about the morphine, but he needs release from his pain and his… his memories, if only for a short time."

"Hochstetter just added a few more 'memories', Doktor," Kinchloe said bitterly, before he could stop himself. He saw her face blanch. "I'm sorry. You have a few 'memories' of your own." He touched her cheek. "Your penicillin…" His voice cracked.

"Don't think about that.  I'm glad it went to you, and to Andrew and the others.  I'm sorry only that Colonel Hogan had to suffer to get it. I thought Major Hochstetter would sell it in the black market.  People have killed for penicillin and sulphonamides.  There isn't enough, and the bombings…" She stopped.

"I guess you think that we're being paid back - Carter, the Colonel and me - for our love of sabotage."

"No. Of course not.  You must do what you do. You have told me that many times. Of course you are glad when you succeed. What good workman is not?"

"But you should not have gotten hurt." Kinchloe tried to look at her bruised, cut face without clenching his hands.  He bit back the question but it echoed and re-echoed through his anxious mind. "Did those bastards rape you?"  Instead, he closed his hands over hers. For some reason, she struggled to pull them out of his grasp. He held them tighter, looked down and saw why.  Her wrists were ringed a purplish red.

He looked up at her.   "What have they done to you?"

His dispassionate tones did not fool her. "Herr Kinchloewen…James…don't…"

"Marli." He forced his voice to remain calm, gentle, yet commanding. "Marli, what have they done to you?  Tell me."

Marlena drew in her breath, but she could not repress her shudders. "They burst into my examination room. One grabbed my arms, and wrenched them behind my back. The other slapped me senseless."

She looked at Kinchloe, biting back her tears.  It was almost a relief to confess to him; but oh, the pain in his eyes!

"They tied my wrists to the legs of the examination table. They … tore open my… my dress. Slapped me whenever I struggled or made a sound. In fact, I think they enjoyed making me kick at them, so they could grab my legs and ….  Then Major Hochstetter entered.  He stopped them and then he…" 

She shuddered even more violently and shook her head. She could not tell him what had happened after that.  Not to Herr Kinchloewen.  To Colonel Hogan, she could say it. She could work up her anger more easily before him, and now he had anger of his own to expend. But not to this man.  Certainly not to Andrew.  To Peter?  Perhaps. But not to this man.

"He 'fondled' you, didn't he?" Kinchloe looked at her as if he knew all too well what men have done to women.  She turned away from his compassion and his euphemism with a stifled sob. "He stroked…my…"

"You needn't go on, Marli, unless you feel you must let it out." James Kinchloe's low voice sounded resigned; but held an undercurrent of rage.  Red rage that competed with the helplessness that threatened to overpower him. This woman, his good friend, had upheld and counselled him when his beloved sister announced her marriage to a man he had never met.  He had turned to her in his depression and jealousy and she had comforted him. Anyone who harmed her, harmed him.  She meant as much to him as his Jessie did, or as his colonel did, or as his comrades did.

When he had stood at the window, watching Hochstetter's goons throw the dead victims of pneumonia into the fire and coughing out the smoke and the pus from his congested lungs, he had faced his own mortality. He had recited the words of the psalm in that hushed barracks, surrounded by the men he had vowed to protect and to serve, fully expecting his own corpse would burn next. "_Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of the death, I will fear no evil, for Thou are with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me_." 

The words had brought him solace – the words and Carter's trusting face turned up to his.  That and Schultz's sympathetic expression.  Schultz had been on the opposite side in the battle that had killed his father in 1918.  It surprised him that he no longer felt animosity toward the big man, but a kinship. German though he was, guard though he was, Schultz was a fellow victim, because he was a kind, good man.  Somewhere along the line, he had forgiven Schultz for being at Sechault, for being one of the Germans who had killed his father.  He was glad that he had.

But he vowed he would never forgive Hochstetter for what he had done to Marli. He never would forgive him for what he had done to Colonel Hogan.

James Kinchloe looked from his dear friend's bruised, tear-streaked face to his unconscious commander's motionless, wounded body.  _Where is my comfort now?_

***

Kommandant Klink re-entered the room, Sergeant Schultz, Corporal Langenscheidt and the strong, stolid Corporal Kohler behind him.  Langenscheidt, cumbered with the rifle slung on his back, carried a stretcher with some difficulty across the threshold.

"Enshuldigung, Fraulein Doktor, but we must leave now for the Bahnhof."  He stopped short as he caught sight of Kinchloe, then made a curt gesture.  Kohler immediately came to the Kommandant's side and raised his gun.  Langenscheidt leaned the stretcher against the wall and reluctantly did likewise.

Doktor Falke stared up from Kinchloe to Klink.  She felt that she was caught between a stag and a wolf pack. 

"Herr Ki…" Kinchloe's hand suddenly squeezed hers tight.  She hastily corrected herself. "Herr Kommandant!  What is happening here?"

Her eyes shifted to Schultz, who looked back at her in sorrow.  Langenschiedt bit his lips.  Kohler merely looked impassive.

"I warned you I would exact reprisals, Kinchloe," Klink said coldly. "Schultz.  Secure him."

Schultz murmured an apology as he signalled Kinchloe to rise.  Kinch mutely nodded his forgiveness.  He rose and submitted to Kohler pulling his wrists behind his back, handcuffing him and binding him to the post of the bunk.  

Doktor Falke, agitated, rounded on Klink.  "Herr Kommandant, why are you punishing this man?  He was only coming to the defence of his colonel."

"Please, Doktor. Stay out of it."  The sergeant replied quietly, his expression sombre.  "Kommandant, I beg you.  Keep Colonel Hogan here, even for a day.  Let Doktor Falke do what she can for him."  Klink curtly shook his head.   Mustering all his self-control, all his power to persuade, Kinch continued to supplicate him.

"Kommandant, Hochstetter won't come back tonight.  Give us that time to prepare him and say our good-byes.  He would give you that, if he were you."

Klink sighed wearily.   "He must go at once. Every minute he stays here is fatal to us all.  I am sorry, Sergeant, but it is out of my hands."

"With respect, sir, it's not." Kinch pleaded.  "Doktor Falke says he has internal injuries. On a bumpy road … he could die before he got there.  Leave him with us, at least for the night.  I can reason him into going if you give me the time."

Klink shook his head, adamant.

"Kommandant." Sergeant Kinchloe snatched at the broken edges of his composure. "At least let him leave here conscious."

Klink merely motioned for Langenscheidt and Kohler to open the stretcher.

They did so, on the floor between the feet of the Kommandant and the black POW.  Then Langensheidt came to Doktor Falke, still seated beside Colonel Hogan's body, and held out his hand. "With respect, Fraulein Doktor. Bitte aufstehe."

Doktor Falke crossed her arms and remained where she sat. She stared up at Klink. "Herr Kommandant. The sergeant is correct.  Colonel Hogan must not be moved.  Not even to a hospital."

"I am afraid he must, Fraulein Doktor.  To Luft Drei, in Silesia."

Doktor Falke gaped, aghast, from Klink to Kinchloe to Klink once more. "Why?"

"You know that yourself."  Klink looked pointedly at her scarred face.  "Come, Fraulein Doktor.  Be sensible. You must go to Köln.  You cannot tend to him."

"You can summon Herr Doktor Kruger here.   He was the senior surgeon who operated on Colonel Hogan."

"Herr Doktor Kruger has seen too often what the Gestapo have done. I doubt he will involve himself further in the case."

His eyes flickered from Doktor Falke's face to Colonel Hogan's.  He faltered, seeing the bruises and cuts both bore.  Then his jaw firmed. "Komm, Fraulein Doktor.  Steigen Sie auf.  You do no good if you stubbornly resist."

She felt Kinchloe's eyes commanding her to stand her ground.  "I do Colonel Hogan no good if I submit," she replied.  "He and this sergeant are prisoners of war and thus under the protection of the Geneva Convention.  I have my duty to the International Red Cross…"

"You have your duty to protest, certainly.  We both have our duty to protect the prisoners, within reason, Fraulein Doktor."    That is what I am trying to do – I am trying to protect a fool from a madman. 

Klink tried to keep his temper in control, but he leaked a little anger into his voice.  It would not hurt Doktor Falke to be afraid. "The Gestapo has 'expressed an interest' in Colonel Hogan.  Your protest to Geneva must go through the German Red Cross.  Verstehen Sie?  It will take time.  You've examined Colonel Hogan.  You tell his sergeant he has internal injuries.  I tell you Major Hochstetter will inflict more of the same. Does he have that time?"

Doktor Falke looked for a long minute at Colonel Hogan's still form.

"Komm, Doktor." Klink persisted. "You must be on the train to Köln."

She hesitated. "If Colonel Hogan is moved, he will likely die."

"If he stays, he will certainly die."

He turned to Kinchloe, looked into the black sergeant's tormented eyes.

"Sergeant Kinchloe.  Do not resist.  Do not compromise the Fraulein Doktor. You both are at my mercy.  Do not make me turn you over to Hochstetter." 

Their eyes locked. "I mean Colonel Hogan no harm," he continued.  "You cannot protect him.  You cannot protect yourself."

Klink's voice was reasonable, even gentle.  "You know that I mean him no harm.  You know that if he remains here for Hochstetter to torture further, he will die.  I give you my solemn word.  Surrender him to me, and he will be safe in Sagan.  Resist and neither you nor your friends will survive him." 

He turned to Doktor Falke.  There was a significant pause.  "I include the Fraulein Doktor among those 'friends', Sergeant."

He turned back to Kinchloe.  He paused again, and then looked straight into his eyes.  "It ill repays him, Sergeant Kinchloe, to sacrifice the lives he gambled his life to save."

Kinch shut his eyes and swallowed, stabbed by guilt.  "Very well, Kommandant.  I surrender him to you." He swallowed again, in obvious distress, and opening his eyes, stared deep into Klink's. "Guard him well, sir."

Marlena bit back her "Mein Herr!"  She summoned all the chill of her scorn into her voice and threw it at Klink. "How can you guarantee Colonel Hogan's safety in Sagan?"

"Its Kommandant is a friend of mine.  And General Burkhalter has authorized the transfer." 

She looked up into Klink's face.  He looked drawn, tense, austere.  She looked at Sergeant Kinchloe, his wrists shackled to his colonel's bunkpost.  She turned her head, and looked down at Colonel Hogan's lax face.  She could not protest any longer – not against a general.  She lowered her eyes in submission.

"Draw up your morphine, Fraulein Doktor."  Klink's voice was cold with command.

She gaped at him.  "My morphine?"

"Your morphine.  I'm taking you to Köln now and I am not leaving this camp while he is conscious and can plot against me." He jerked his head at Kinchloe.

Marlena's eyes met those of the black sergeant.  Comatose, Colonel Hogan no longer could defend himself.   Nor could they now defend him.  But what about the other prisoners of war?  When Hochstetter finds out his prey has been snatched from him, he will turn to those birds still trapped in the cage.   Herr Kinchloewen was the guardian of the operation.  It, and they, now depended on him.  She must not make the same mistake twice.  

She gave the POW a hard, appraising look, then sneered, "Why should I waste my precious morphine on a Negro, Herr Kommandant?  He hasn't the brains to plot against you." 

"He is Hogan's adjutant, Fraulein Doktor."

"Colonel Hogan's lackey, you mean.  His body servant." She shrugged dismissively.  "Fetch this.  Carry that.  Dress me.  Clean up my quarters.  He's a mule.  A dog.  Obedient to whoever commands him."

Her eyes blinked away from his.  _"Forgive me, dear mein Herr.  Please.  If you cannot forgive me the greater betrayal, forgive me at least this."_

Then she snorted. "Really, Kommandant!  You now have the brain.  This man is nothing but the brawn.  I need the morphine to relieve the pain of Germans, not to subdue Untermenchen."

Klink looked from Doktor Falke to Kinchloe.  The sergeant looked dispirited, crushed.   Yet, the glance he shot them beneath his lowered eyelids was anything but meek.

Biting his lower lip, Sergeant Kinchloe tried to appear submissive before his captors.  He knew Marlena was trying to redeem herself in his eyes; but he knew she was also trying to save him so he could work out a way to save the situation.  Not that he could save it.  Without Colonel Hogan's backing, he had no might or right to direct the men.  But until a new senior officer was transferred into Stalag Thirteen, the prisoners had no leader.  Klink feared, and Marlena believed, that they would turn to him.  They were certain of it. 

He was not.  In fact, he strongly doubted it.  When the men find out he had surrendered Colonel Hogan into Klink's power without a struggle, he'd be lucky not to be beaten to a pulp.  But he knew he had to take charge, immediately, before fights erupted among the factions that made up their multiethnic, multinational population.  Before someone used the tunnel to escape, releasing the flood of escapes that would surely follow.

_The main thing is to keep the men alive and working together and our operation hidden. I'm merely 'minding the store' until the new C.O. arrives.   _He glanced at Doktor Falke, sighed and gave her the ghost of a smile.  _"It's alright, Marli.  I've played 'dumb and docile' many times.  I know I've got to put Klink's fears to sleep.  Just do your best to keep your syringe well away from me."_

Klink contemplated the black man's bowed head, and downcast eyes.  _Hogan sacrificed his life to save this man.  There must be something within him that made it worthwhile._

"Sergeant Kinchloe.  Give me your word that you will cause no further trouble and I will not exact punishment." 

"You have my word, Kommandant.  I will cause you no trouble."

Without moving his eyes from Kinchloe's he jerked his head to Schultz.  "Release him.  See that a watch is kept on him until my return."

Schultz opened the handcuffs.  Kinchloe's eyes fixed upon Klink's  as he rubbed his wrists.  Klink swallowed; but tried to keep an air of dominance. 

"I commend your loyalty, Sergeant, and I honour your intelligence. You are powerless against me.  You are completely helpless against the Gestapo.  Let me save your colonel the only way I can."

Kinchloe held his eyes, then exhaling deeply, looked down at the motionless man beneath the dark blanket.  "As you say, Kommandant, I am powerless."

He gazed at Hogan with all the warmth of his affection and devotion.  "Please, sir.  Let me lay him down."

Klink's austere expression softened. "Of course, Sergeant Kinchloe."

Kinch crossed to Marlena.  "Fraulein Doktor Falke."  Marlena rose.  As she stood aside, she stumbled slightly, so that her sleeve brushed against his.  Reflexively, he put his hand to her arm to steady her.  They exchanged glances. 

"Thank you."  _"God keep you safe, Herr Löewen.."_

"You're welcome, Doktor Falke."  _"And you as well.  I'll alert the underground to watch over you, but take care."_

Klink took Marlena's arm.  "Time we left, Fraulein Doktor.  Sergeant. Kinchloe, mind your fellow prisoners.  I want no trouble."

"You'll have none, Kommandant."

Klink nodded stiffly. "Good. See to your colonel." 

Their eyes met again.  Kinchloe saw a look of mute apology and helplessness deep in Klink's eyes. As if he was the powerless one, not me. 

The black sergeant's expression slowly turned from his austere anger to pity, and then to an unwilling sympathy and an even more reluctant gratitude. When Hochstetter returned for his prey, what were anyone's chances of survival?  Klink was trying to save Colonel Hogan's life at some risk to his own.  And he was taking Marlena to the station.  Maybe he was also trying to rescue her from Hochstetter.

He exhaled a heavy sigh.  How many times had he compromised, or given in to pressure or persuasion, or resorted to underhanded means to protect or to rescue the colonel or one of the men? How many times would he still need to do so before this nightmare was over?

He saluted Klink, then bent over the bunk. With infinite gentleness, he gathered his unconscious commander's body in his arms and laid it upon the stretcher.  As Langensheidt tucked the blanket around the comatose man, he touched a bruise upon his cheek.

"Sleep well, Colonel.  I pray God that one day I'll hear you either forgive me or damn me for this."

****  
Kinch stood silent beside the strong, stolid Corporal Kohler, and watched Schultz and Langenscheidt slide the stretcher bearing his commanding officer into the back of the truck.  He felt Kohler's eyes upon him; saw Kohler's hand tense on his gun. 

_"What does he think I'll do now?"_ he thought bitterly, handing up to Schultz the colonel's long coat and the bag containing his belongings. "Please, Schultz. Take better care of him than I did."

Schultz closed his big hand over the black man's wrist, moved by his quavering entreaty and by his remorse filled, tormented eyes.  "It is for the best, Sergeant Kinchloe.   Do not take it too hard."  He squeezed the wrist sympathetically as he took the bag.   Then he glanced at his unconscious charge. "He will be safe in Luft Drei."

"Those fifty murdered British prisoners were not safe, " Kinch retorted.

"Over seventy men had escaped at the same time.  It embarrassed too many big shots.  That's why…" Schultz followed Kinchloe's eyes to Hogan's motionless body.  "The new Kommandant of Stalag Three has taken precautions and there will be no more escapes.  Since he cannot escape, Colonel Hogan will be safe."  Schultz nodded to Langenscheidt, who stepped to Kinchloe's side.

"Promise me that you will not stir up trouble while I am gone, Sergeant Kinchloe."

Kinch nodded, took one long final look at his commander, and slowly moved back from the truck.

A different yet equally intense look passed between Schultz and Langenscheidt.  _"Guard him well."_  Even Fraulein Doktor Falke, hidden behind the dark glass of Kommandant Klink's staff car, caught that look.  She doubted there would be trouble, at least, none for the guards.  The hostile glances and mutterings among the prisoners signalled trouble for Herr Kinchloewen.  Doktor Falke realized with a start that that was what Herr Schultz meant to convey to his young subordinate.  _"Guard Sergeant Kinchloe well.  Make sure no trouble comes to him."_

She watched the other prisoners back away as Kinchloe and Langenscheidt crossed the compound. Newkirk, Carter and LeBeau, Colonel Hogan's staff, were left alone to meet them.  Even Olsen moved back.  Marcus Simms did not move back so far.  He caught Baker's sleeve, and the two black men held a short whispered conversation.  Baker nodded, and then slipped away from the other men.   To the tunnel, Doktor Falke suspected.  _Goldilocks is about to eat some very disagreeable porridge_.

 With a sigh, she settled back against the seat cushion and watched the truck move toward the gate, Corporal Kohler at the wheel. 

A movement caught her eye: Corporal Newkirk saluting the truck.  _Colonel Hogan's unconscious, so why did he bother? Peter has never saluted any man willingly before._  Then she saw him clench his fist and turn to Kinch, saw LeBeau catch his sleeve and Marcus Simms quickly move to defend his friend.  She saw Newkirk pull away from the Frenchman, uttering what must have been a curse or an insult because LeBeau recoiled from him and stalked away.  Kinch stiffened and directed what must have been a withering glance at Newkirk before following LeBeau.  Newkirk responded with a rude gesture.  Then the RAF corporal moved off toward the worn track that encircled the perimeter of the camp.  

Carter stared at Kinch's rigid back for a moment, then trailed after his English friend.  Doktor Falke saw Newkirk stop and turn to him.  She saw them exchange a few words; then she saw the corporal lean against the wall of Barracks 4, his posture visibly relaxing as he and Carter continued to talk.  She saw Newkirk glance up at the 'goon towers', then at his barracks.  The tilt of his head seemed to say he was reconsidering his outburst.  With relief, she saw him put his arm around Carter's shoulders and move off toward their barracks.  Perhaps something Andrew had said had cooled his friend's ire.  She hoped so.  No matter how often they quarrelled, Peter had always backed his friends in times of crisis.  They were in a very grave predicament now, one she had unintentionally brought upon them.  Colonel Hogan was not returning and they were without a commander. There may be a power struggle, a realignment of allegiances, perhaps escape attempts involving their tunnel.  They needed to back each other more than ever to keep control of their operation.  Could they do it, bereaved and angered as they were?

*** 

As Kommandant Klink drove, Doktor Falke sat silently beside him.  She stared at the raindrops running down the window of the staffcar, and tried to compose her thoughts and deal with her guilt.  She had, through her vanity over her scarred face, helped Kommandant Klink abduct Colonel Hogan from his men.  She had put Sergeant Kinchloe in a false position before his fellow prisoners, perhaps put him in danger from their revenge.  Colonel Hogan had trusted his adjutant to protect him.  When the colonel awoke, would he think that his adjutant had shown cowardice or betrayed him to his enemies?  Against all Sergeant Kinchloe's instincts and all his prejudices – against his better judgement, she admitted bitterly – he had trusted in Kommandant Klink's compassion towards a suffering man and a brother officer.  _And look where that trust got them._

Perhaps he had not been deceived in Klink; since the Kommandant had not intended harm to Colonel Hogan. But he had trusted in her as well; that she would never put their operation at risk, that she would deal honestly with them.  _I never meant to trick you into surrendering him into Klink's power, mein Herr. When I found out my penicillin went to you and Andrew, then I doubly wanted to keep my condition from you.  I did not want you or Andrew to feel a guilt you did not deserve.  You'll never believe me – I never meant to betray you.._

Suddenly, she was jolted into the present moment. Klink had turned the staff car west, away from the town and the train station.  Doktor Falke gasped as visions of her ordeal flooded her mind.  She caught herself whimpering. She had trusted Klink too, and he had betrayed her trust when he betrayed Sergeant Kinchloe's.  Did the Kommandant intend to rape her as well?

Choking back a sob, she thrust her fears behind her coolest, most impassive 'Fraulein Doktor' expression.  "Herr Kommandant.  The other physicians are waiting for me at the train station. Why are we not going there?"

"Because I am taking you to the station in Dusseldorf.   We must talk candidly about what has happened," Klink replied, his voice tight.  "Hauptmann Gruber will mind Stalag Thirteen in my absence.  He will not harm the prisoners."  He gave her a sidelong glance, then cleared his throat.  "I've had the car checked.  There are no listening devices. No one will hear our conversation."

Marlena quaked. Major Hochstetter had used those very words while he stroked her breasts. She could still hear his loathsome, silky voice.  _"My men will see we are not disturbed, Fraulein Doktor.  No one will hear our 'conversation'."_

Klink turned his attention to the road.  "Do not be alarmed, Doktor Falke.  I am not going to touch you."

"How can I trust you, after what you just did?"

"I had to do it, to save Hogan's life.  To save all our lives,"  he said quietly.

"You tricked me.  You tricked him.  You tricked his sergeant." 

"Doktor.  What are the feelings of one Negro to anyone, even to Hogan?" Klink glanced at her, and then sighed as he saw her wince and recoil. "I am trying to protect the lives of **_all_** my prisoners.  That is why Hogan must go to Oflag Drei.  If Hochstetter beats a confession from him…"

She interrupted him. "Kommandant, Colonel Hogan has been a prisoner of war for over two years.  How can he be a spy?  What secrets has he to confess?"

"I do not know; but he'll confess.  He traded information for your penicillin..."

"In order to heal his men."

"Ja. He lied to save his men.  By lying such a lie, he admitted he had access to information worth selling. How could he have obtained it?  Thorough other prisoners?  Through you?  Of all civilians, you are the one most frequently in contact with them.  What if Hochstetter thinks you are involved with him in his crime?"

"What crime?" she demanded.  "What has been proven against him?"

"Hochstetter is not looking for proof.  He is looking for blood.  A band of saboteurs have made him a laughingstock by sabotaging everything beneath his nose.  Reichmarshall Himmler does not care for Gestapo agents to appear fools.  If Hochstetter does not manufacture a master spy, he may be executed for incompetence."

"But a prisoner of war in the most secure camp in Germany – a master spy?  Ridiculous."

"Fraulein Doktor!  Never breathe such words about the Gestapo, if you value your life."

Klink pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the engine. "My dear. For all our sakes.  Yours. His. Mine. And for the men you so foolishly care so much about.  When you arrive in Köln – disappear.  Please.  Hochstetter's a demented sadist.  You are powerless to oppose him.  He'll rape you again, and again – for the pleasure of causing you pain, to make you submit to him against your will.  And he wants your cache of drugs.  You know the astronomical prices they command on the black market.  He knows that the doctors have been hoarding and hiding them, for when … if… no, for when we are in extremis."  Klink gripped the steering wheel. "Think of what he'll do to you … to all of us … if he suspects you are conspiring with Hogan.  You must disappear."

Marlena shuddered. "How can I disappear, Herr Kommandant?  How does that help any of us? To flee is to confirm his suspicions.  He can snatch me back with one telephone call to the Gestapo in Köln, or to the Gauleiter's office, or to the Red Cross. The _German_ Red Cross.  If I do not register when I arrive in Köln – if I do not arrive – he will track me down."

_And what will I say when he does? _Again she felt those gloved fingers stroking her, slapping her, probing inside her.  Again she heard the threat in his oily voice.  _I would have said anything then.  I would have betrayed them. I was so afraid of what he threatened to do. So very afraid.  Thank God he only demanded the penicillin and my body. _

She fought down her guilt and grief.  Her life, Colonel Hogan's life, and the lives of his men now hung on her keeping an impassive mask in front of Kommandant Klink.  If he thought there was a hint of truth in Major Hochstetter's suspicions, he would hand her over to the Gestapo to save himself.

"Herr Kommandant.  I have a private practice as well as my Red Cross work.  Were it not for the emergency, I could not leave Hammelburg on the spur of the moment."

"Then take advantage of the emergency, my dear.  The power lines are down.  The trains cannot enter the station.  All is disruption in Köln.  Take the chance to escape Hochstetter while you can."

"And where can I hide?  Who would hide me?  I know no one who would dare hide a fugitive from the Gestapo.  And anyone who would dare, would suspect me of being a mole."  She laid her hand on his sleeve.  "Danke, Herr Kommandant, for your concern; but the best thing I can do to absolve suspicion is to show myself a loyal German for as long as I can."

Klink heaved a sigh and started up the car.  "At least I have warned you."

"I appreciate that.  You are very kind."  She looked at Klink's tense face.  His eyes were full of dread. His cheekbones seemed to burst through his skin, so tight were his teeth clenched. "Kommandant. Can you not escape yourself?"

"And leave my men and my prisoners to Hochstetter's dementia?  No, Fraulein Doktor.  I cannot.  I've contemplated it; but…"  He shook his head.  "I cannot. A Prussian officer does not desert his men.  No true commander would."

He stared out through the windshield at the darkening sky and the snow-covered road ahead of the car.  "That is why I drugged Colonel Hogan to sleep," he slowly admitted.  "He saved their lives by risking his own.  I knew he would not leave his men to the fury of a maniac."

They drove in silence for several miles.  Then Klink cleared his throat again.

"I – I am sorry for what happened in Hogan's quarters.  I did not intend to hurt his … his adjutant.  In fact, I did not want his men to know I was taking Hogan away until he was far from camp.  I wanted to get you far on your way as well.  When you asked to examine him without his knowledge, because you had to rush to Köln, it was an answer to prayer."

"But you told Sergeant Kinchloe what you intended."

"No. I did not. I told Hogan.  I had to tell Hogan.  I wanted to reassure him. He thought I had poisoned him, when all I wanted to do send him to a safe haven.

"I knew his blackamoor would not leave him, not even with three armed guards outside the door.  I did not insist then that he did, so he overheard my conversation with Hogan.  When I looked into the man's eyes, … saw his devotion to his colonel … I wish I had such devotion from my men."  Klink bit his lip, shaking his head.  Then sighed.  "How did Kinchloe elude the guards? I gave them strict orders to watch Hogan's men like hawks – and to fire should they approach the barracks."

"He saw Sergeant Schultz escort a muffled figure carrying a black bag into the barracks."  Doktor Falke's voice lowered to a whisper.   She looked down at her hands. "Maybe he did not know it was me.  Maybe he did know, and thought I would kill his colonel.  Maybe he believed the rumours about German doctors experimenting on prisoners."

Klink looked at her, aghast. "Not in my camp!  And not you!"

"Why not?" she retorted.  "For a man of his race, it must be his greatest fear – and you had just drugged his colonel.  He was responsible for guarding Colonel Hogan's life, and he failed him.  He trusted you and … and so he had stood by while you administered the morphine.  What would you have done in his place, guilt ridden and frantic, but risk your life to rescue him?  What am I to him or any of his comrades but a Kraut doctor who carries death in her bag?  Even if he had recognised me, how could he trust me when he saw Sergeant Schultz escort me into his barracks?"

She silently railed at him.  "What honour have you left me? All I wanted to do was examine Colonel Hogan, not help you abduct him. You used my presence alone with Sergeant Kinchloe as a threat to us both, so that he would not shout an alarm to his friends and so foil your scheme.  You bound him, and then you sought to drug him senseless with my morphine. How do I know what Captain Gruber may be doing to him now? How can you expect me to trust your word ever again?"

"Doktor Falke." Klink bit his thin lips. "Fraulein Doktor.  I am not the man you think me.  If they behave, no harm will come to any of Hogan's men from me.  But, because they are Hogan's men, I cannot protect them from the sadist who wants to kill him.  What does one Negro sergeant matter?  He is unimportant, even to the Allies."

"He is not 'unimportant' to me, Kommandant.  He is not 'unimportant' to Colonel Hogan. He is not 'unimportant' at all."

She tried to restrain her bitter words. "What does Colonel Hogan matter to you, that you are sending him away to protect him from Major Hochstetter?"

"Because when Hogan confesses that he is a spy … it does not matter that he is not and could not be one. Hochstetter is convinced that he is and the Gestapo are never wrong.  When Hogan confesses … there will be mass murder.  Him.  His men. Me and my men. You, because you are the medical officer and are thus Hogan's most frequent civilian contact.  My secretary, Hilda.  Their flirtation is obvious. Perhaps also Schnitzer the veterinarian.  Anyone who has met him will die.  Don't you see that? I do not want to die, Fraulein Doktor.  Do you?"

"Of course I don't want to die.  I don't want anyone to die."  _Except Major Hochstetter. I would kill him myself with pleasure if I knew how. _

She smiled an acid smile. _ "Hardly pacifistic, Doktor Pacifist," Colonel Hogan would say if he were awake and heard me._

"General Burkhalter authorized Hogan's transfer to Oflag Drei."  He looked at her, shamefaced.  "General Burkhalter told me that Hogan has influential connections in the United States – particularly in Washington." He bit his lips again.  "Our glorious armies have made a few strategic retreats, to lure the enemy into a false sense of security.  Yet, we Germans are magnanimous.  We do not wish to destroy a gallant foe. … Hogan had an outstanding record as an 'ace' against our Luftwaffe.  He's considered a hero in America.  Yet, while at Stalag Thirteen, he has been a model prisoner.  Cooperative.  Even docile."

Doktor Falke looked doubtful.  "Amenable to compromise? Ja. I will reluctantly grant that.  Docile?  Nein.  He is far too full of conceit."

"I agree, but General Burkhalter believes Hogan will be 'amenable to compromise' if certain incentives were offered to him.  Hogan is an intelligent, prudent man." Doktor Falke stifled a snort.  "Ja.  I've always found him to be arrogant and irritating too; but his men ... well, you know what he did for them and you saw how they adore him."  Klink paused significantly.  "Hogan is an ambitious man.  He enjoys power; therefore, he will be eager to acquire more power.  And he can win men's loyalty. He seems to have won yours."

"He is not without charm," Doktor Falke admitted.

 "No, he is not without charm," Klink agreed.  "The stick and the carrot, Fraulein Doktor.  Marshall Petain was a hero to the French in the 1918 war, yet he saw the advantages of collaboration for France, and for himself as its governor, when they were pointed out to him.  Perhaps if Hogan was offered the right carrots …"

Marlena gave Klink a sidelong glance. Was he fishing for her true opinion of Colonel Hogan's veniality, gauging her loyalty to the Reich, or hinting at a ruse to get the colonel safely back to America?  Was he being honest with her, or was he setting a trap to snare Hogan and his men by first entrapping her? 

She spoke cautiously.  "Could you not arrange a prisoner transfer, like you did when Field Marshal Von Heinke was captured?"

"General Burkhalter is working on it.  Hogan is important to certain parties, but as a colonel, perhaps not important enough to trade."  Klink paused. "Rumour … there are indications, …pictures in the American press that … indicate that Roosevelt is quite unwell."

Marlena bit her lip, but said evenly, "So it all depends on the American president?"

"I hope not.  I mean, I hope that he is not the only influential person Hogan knows.  If so, should Roosevelt die … But he may know others.  Burkhalter thinks so. Hogan bragged to me once that he had escorted the King and Queen of England on their tour of America."

Doktor Falke bit back her sudden irritation that Klink had not said _North_ America.  Now was not the time to be fussily patriotic.  Lives may hang on how she phrased what she said. "From Washington to New York City.  He also bragged of it to me."  She looked at Klink hopefully.  "The King and Queen of England are held in great esteem by their subjects, and by the Americans."

"I hope Hogan is as well regarded by them; but they probably do not even remember him."

"Colonel Hogan is, we have agreed, very charming, and I have heard the British monarchs appreciate charm.  He must have impressed them."

"You don't think that it was one of Hogan's conniving lies?" Klink said hopefully. "The number of professions and achievements he has claimed for himself and his men, to ingratiate himself with me …"

Now Marlena bit her lips. Colonel Hogan had silenced her protest against sabotaging Herr Schultz's toy factory by his boast that he would have it rebuilt by his government.  _Perhaps it was a lie, like the other ones.  Perhaps he was merely a minor functionary during the King's visit.  Perhaps he did not have his president's ear._

She shook her head. _No. It was preposterous, but I believed him. I believed that he could make his government rebuild the Schatze Toy Company.  I believed his president sent him to England as his personal agent and observer the moment war began in 1939. I believe all his boasts are true.  He met influential people. Air Marshal Tedder's aide, Group-Captain Roberts, is his close friend. I believe that, for him, the Group-Captain is working on my behalf with the authorities to get me a written promise that I would be fairly tried.  A non-entity like me – of far less worth to him than is Herr Kinchloewen. Of far, far less worth.  He insisted on guarantees before he would ship me to London. He would not surrender me unless the authorities promised I would not be executed while in their custody – that they would wait until he came back to defend me. He insisted as if he expected they would comply – important people like Churchill and Mackenzie King. _ _ And, in a way, they did.  They let him take charge of me.  They did not insist I be sent back regardless.  These important people trusted him with someone they suspected of treason._

The realization amazed her.  Who was this man she had fought against?  Had she really despised him?  Or had she deceived herself, out of prejudice and jealousy?  Had she really cared about him?

"Herr Kommandant, I believe Colonel Hogan is all he says he is.  No one can carry as much self pride as he does and not have a reason to possess it."

They remained silent for several minutes, staring out through the windshield at the driving rain.

"I hope you are right, Fraulein Doktor."

There was another long silence.

"Kommandant? Major Hochstetter had made these accusations in the past without applying torture.  Why torture him now?"

Klink shrugged.  "Who knows?"

"The war goes badly for Germany, doesn't it?"  she ventured.

"Don't say that!  Our glorious armies …" Klink faltered.  "Don't say it, Doktor Falke.  Don't even think it!"

"And why choose Colonel Hogan – a prisoner of war in the most escape proof camp in Germany? Are there no likelier suspects?"

"Who knows?"  Klink paused. "Hochstetter's been ranting ever since that article appeared in the American press eighteen months ago – the article about the underground safehouse within a POW camp."

"Oh."  Doktor Falke replied, suddenly feeling dizzy.

"Do you remember the time my men found you in the woods near the wreckage of an American bomber?"

"Ja," she cautiously admitted. "They had brought me to Stalag Thirteen suffering from a sprained ankle.  I remember how kind you were to me then."

_How could I forgotten what I had seen, and smelled, then? Charred flesh. Burning leaves and wood and fuel and plastic. The bits and pieces of metal and paper and bodies.  How could I forget the climb up that hill?  The searing pain in my ankle from twisting it when the plane's impact quaked the ground and threw me from my bicycle? Herr Kinchloewen finding me and carrying me to a safe watching spot while he inspected the site. How could I forget fainting to lure the guards away from him while he hid in the part of the bomber that had remained intact?_

"You took a great risk, Fraulein Doktor. But then, I suppose your sense of duty as a doctor made you take it."

"Ja.  I thought those men needed my help.  Whoever they were, I had my duty to them as a doctor."  _Just as Colonel Hogan and Sergeant Kinchloe had their duties as soldiers._

Klink continued. "Several of my guards saw a man descend by parachute just before the plane crashed. They searched for him in the woods; but did not find him.  Just you and the bodies of the men in the plane – what was left of them.  In the morning, they found a tree with several branches broken, and a parachute buried in the ground nearby.   My men examined it and said that the man in the parachute could not have cut the chute ropes by himself.  There were footmarks that signified more than one man had recently loitered near the tree, and that one of those men had carried a heavy burden away from it. 

"I did not pursue the incident.  It was clear that the parachutist had escaped, and I did not want the Gestapo nosing around.  No one does. 

"Then a few months later, one of our agents in the America read the correspondent's – Hobson, I think his name was – article. Hochstetter started interrogating my guards about planes shot down nearby within the last year.   One of the tower guards told him about the lone man who bailed out of the downed bomber.  Added to the alarming destruction of military property that has occurred, and that Hogan's irritating presence always seems to hover about those incidents, Hochstetter thought the parachutist might have been this Hobson, and that Stalag Thirteen might house this underground safehouse.  Ridiculous, that I would not know what goes on in my own prison camp."

"That was long ago – over eighteen months."

"That was when Hochstetter started annoying me over Hogan being a spy.  Oh, there were others who made similar accusations, but Hochstetter has been relentless."

"Why torture him now, when he has suspected Colonel Hogan for months?" Doktor Falke persisted.

"Do you really want to know?  I do not."  Klink looked thoughtful.  "Maybe it has something to do with Roosevelt's recent downturn in health," he mused. "General Burkhalter has often pulled Hochstetter away from us – Hogan and me – before now.  Perhaps Hogan's value as a potential collaborator has also suffered a downturn. "

He shook himself.  "Fraulein Doktor, we should not be having this conversation."

"I agree, Herr Kommandant."

"But think upon what I've said.  Find a bolthole and disappear.  Should Hochstetter make Colonel Hogan confess, all our lives are forfeit."

"Then I must not act as if there is proof to get.  I must not disappear."

Klink looked at her in silence.  "You care about those men of his.  No, do not deny it."

"I am a physician, sir," she replied coldly.  "It is my duty to care for anyone who needs my skills, no matter who they are."

"I said 'about', not 'for' his men.  You are Hogan's most frequent civilian contact."

"You are his most frequent military contact," she parried.  "And you are not leaving."

"I have my duty to the Reich.  To my men."  Klink paused.  "To my ancestors.  We Klinks are of the old aristocracy.  We have always served the Fatherland.  I could not live with myself if I betrayed my family and my class."

Doktor Falke looked at him with some respect.  "You have always been conscientious to your duty, Herr Kommandant. I must be conscientious to mine.  You have been a firm but fair guardian of those prisoners in Stalag Thirteen.  I can only hope to do my work as well as you have done yours."

"Danke, Fraulein Doktor."  Klink seemed touched by her sincerity.  "It is not easy for you, I know, to doctor the enemy and then operate upon their victims.  Like a lawyer who must defend a criminal, it is distasteful, and the mud sticks."

"Mein Herr, I try to follow the teachings of Christ, as well as the laws of the Fatherland."

"Fraulein Doktor.  I have always observed the Geneva Convention."

"I know that, Herr Kommandant."

 "We Germans are not such a bad people, are we?"

"No.  I do not think we are."  She looked back at him, and ventured,  "but we are not the 'Master' race.  Are we?"

Klink looked back at her, speculative.  For a moment, Doktor Falke saw a slight smile curve the Kommandant's lips.  Not a gloating smile.  Not a taunting smile.  Not a predatory smile.  The smile of a man who discovers he can admit a truth to someone and not be punished for it.  "No, Fraulein Doktor.  I do not believe we are the 'Master' race."  He paused.   "I'll make things right.  I mean, I am sorry how I used your morphine and … you need not worry."

"If they can be made right."

He hesitated.  "It is really no different in the United States.  They believe in racial segregation."

"Colonel Hogan doesn't.  I am certain many other Americans do not."

"Then why do they have it?"

"I do not know."  She paused.  "It must be difficult for Americans to live together.  All those different races and sects."

"Ja.  Here we are all Germans.  All the same."

They glanced at one another, and each saw the thought in the other's eyes.  _"We are not allowed to be different."_

Despite herself, Doktor Falke heaved a wistful sigh, thinking of her old life in Toronto. People were very different there.  Sometimes too different.  It had irritated her, especially the awful cooking smells and the bizarre customs of some of her neighbours, but it was colourful.  She missed it.

She was surprised to hear her sigh echoed by Kommandant Klink.

"Colonel Hogan and I had so many interesting discussions about his home."  Klink began to warm to his subject.  "I would like to visit the United States.  The way Hogan described it … It seems a lively country."

Doktor Falke, recalled to what she pretended to be, said, "I am told it is very beautiful, and very vast.  Mountains, prairies, deserts, lakes.  Farms, cities.  Something for all tastes."

"Hogan told me he came from Ohio.  'The Garden Spot of the Midwest', he called it."

"Really?  The colonel told me he came from Connecticut.  He told me that, should I visit him, he would treat me to 'Boston Baked Beans'."  _'In maple syrup'_, she added silently, with a tiny smile.

"That would be Massachusetts, Fraulein Doktor.  Boston is in Massachusetts.  Maybe his family comes from there."

"Maybe, Herr Kommandant.  There are many people with Irish ancestors, like Colonel Hogan's ancestors, living in Boston."

"He told me that, if I came to America, he would show me a place called 'Leavenworth'." Klink added eagerly, "It must be a fine military site.  Hogan said every one of his superior officers had strongly recommended he spend time there."

Doktor Falke's cheek dimpled.  "Indeed, Herr Kommandant?"

"Well, Hogan is no military mastermind.  In fact, Fraulein Doktor, I am astonished that any civilized armed forces would make him a colonel.  Yet if his superiors thought so well of him to send him to this Leavenworth for advanced training…" He broke off, puzzled.

Doktor Falke prodded gently.  "Advanced training in what, Herr Kommandant."

"He said it was a military secret.  Well," Klink continued happily, "when our forces occupy the United States, I will see for myself, won't I?"

"I am sure if Colonel Hogan recommended it to your attention, you will find it fascinating, Herr Kommandant."  Doktor Falke smiled broadly.

"That's just what Hogan said to me.  He assured me that once I saw Leavenworth, I would find it hard to leave."

"But I hope you will return here after your visit.  Germany needs you."

Klink preened.  "Do you think so?"

"I know it, Herr Kommandant," she said loyally.  She meant it too.  Wilhelm Klink was a good man, for a soldier.  He was not saving Colonel Hogan's life merely to save his own.

Klink's face clouded.  "I hope Hogan will be there to show me around.  I have never been to America, and …  well, Hogan has been, shall we say, good company."

"He may bear you some ill will for drugging him."

"Ja.  I hope he will forgive me.  I hope you will forgive me as well, Fraulein Doktor.  Do you?" he asked anxiously.

As Doktor Falke thought her feelings through, they reached a checkpoint.  Klink stopped at the gate.

A sentry splashed through the puddles to the driver's side of the car.

"Heil Hitler und Guten Tag, Herr Oberst.  Fraulein.  Your papers, bitte."

They handed over their identification papers.  The young sentry scanned them.  Doktor Falke held her breath, but the sentry paid no heed to her.  He was used to even tottering grandmothers and little children holding their breaths as he examined their papers.

"Your business, Herr Oberst?"

"Fraulein Doktor Falke is enroute to Köln on orders of the Red Cross.  I am taking her to the Dusseldorf train station."

The soldier stamped their travel permit and passed back their papers.    "I am sorry that you must go to a bombed city, but I am glad you are not heading east, Fraulein Doktor," he said nodding to his partner to lift the gate barring the road.

"Why do you say that, Sentry?"  Klink demanded.

The soldier shifted his feet uncomfortably. "The usual rumours of heavy fighting, Herr Oberst."

Klink looked at him narrowly.  "You know something.  Tell me."

The sentry grew more uncomfortable.   "Tell me!" Klink repeated his demand.

"We have heard rumours … a radio intercept … garbled … perhaps it means nothing, Herr Oberst, but the rumour is spreading that Russian troops have crossed the Polish border."

Kommandant Klink and Fraulein Doktor Falke gaped at one another.  "It's just a rumour," Klink said shakily. "You know how quickly unfounded gossip spreads."

"But if it is true…"

"Do you have a friend at the Eastern Front, Fraulein Doktor?" the sentry asked solicitously.

Klink replied for her.  "Ja, Corporal.  We do."


End file.
